“Ah! you distrust me! You are wrong; and I am going to prove it. Because, you see, though it is easy to gull that fool who just left here, it is not so easy to deceive Corporal Bavois. Very well! it was scarcely prudent to leave in the court-yard a gun that certainly had not been charged for firing at swallows.”
The cure and Maurice exchanged a glance of consternation. Maurice now recollected, for the first time, that when he sprang from the carriage to lift out Marie-Anne, he propped his loaded gun against the wall. It had escaped the notice of the servants.
“Secondly,” pursued Bavois, “there is someone concealed in the attic. I have excellent ears. Thirdly, I arranged it so that no one should enter the sick lady’s room.”
Maurice needed no further proof. He extended his hand to the corporal, and, in a voice trembling with emotion, he said:
“You are a brave man!”
A few moments later, Maurice, the abbe, and Mme. d’Escorval were again assembled in the drawing-room, deliberating upon the measures which must be taken, when Marie-Anne appeared.
She was still frightfully pale; but her step was firm, her manner quiet and composed.
“I must leave this house,” she said to the baroness. “Had I been conscious, I would never have accepted hospitality which is likely to bring dire misfortune on your family. Alas! your acquaintance with me has cost you too many tears and too much sorrow already. Do you understand now why I wished you to regard us as strangers? A presentiment told me that my family would be fatal to yours!”
“Poor child!” exclaimed Mme. d’Escorval; “where will you go?”
Marie-Anne lifted her beautiful eyes to the heaven in which she placed her trust.