Maurice tottered, and almost dropped his precious burden. The abbe perceived it, and at a sign from him, two servants gently lifted Marie-Anne, and bore her to the house.
Then the cure approached Mme. d’Escorval.
“Monsieur will soon be here, Madame,” said he, at hazard; “he fled first——”
“Baron d’Escorval could not have fled,” she interrupted. “A general does not desert when face to face with the enemy. If a panic seizes his soldiers, he rushes to the front, and either leads them back to combat, or takes his own life.”
“Mother!” faltered Maurice; “mother!”
“Oh! do not try to deceive me. My husband was the organizer of this conspiracy—his confederates beaten and dispersed must have proved themselves cowards. God have mercy upon me; my husband is dead!”
In spite of the abbe’s quickness of perception, he could not understand such assertions on the part of the baroness; he thought that sorrow and terror must have destroyed her reason.
“Ah! Madame,” he exclaimed, “the baron had nothing to do with this movement; far from it——”
He paused; all this was passing in the court-yard, in the glare of the torches which had been lighted up by the servants. Anyone in the public road could hear and see all. He realized the imprudence of which they were guilty.
“Come, Madame,” said he, leading the baroness toward the house; “and you, also, Maurice, come!”