On one point, at least, M. Tabaret was sufficiently enlightened. The researches into the past life of widow Lerouge were no longer difficult. He could not restrain an exclamation of satisfaction, which passed unnoticed by Noel.
“This note,” resumed the advocate, “closes the count’s correspondence with Madame Gerdy.”
“What!” exclaimed the old fellow, “you are in possession of nothing more?”
“I have also ten lines, written many years later, which certainly have some weight, but after all are only a moral proof.”
“What a misfortune!” murmured M. Tabaret. Noel laid on the bureau the letters he had held in his hand, and, turning towards his old friend, he looked at him steadily.
“Suppose,” said he slowly and emphasising every syllable,—“suppose that all my information ends here. We will admit, for a moment, that I know nothing more than you do now. What is your opinion?”
Old Tabaret remained some minutes without answering; he was estimating the probabilities resulting from M. de Commarin’s letters.
“For my own part,” said he at length, “I believe on my conscience that you are not Madame Gerdy’s son.”
“And you are right!” answered the advocate forcibly. “You will easily believe, will you not, that I went and saw Claudine. She loved me, this poor woman who had given me her milk, she suffered from the knowledge of the injustice that had been done me. Must I say it, her complicity in the matter weighed upon her conscience; it was a remorse too great for her old age. I saw her, I interrogated her, and she told me all. The count’s scheme, simply and yet ingeniously conceived, succeeded without any effort. Three days after my birth, the crime was committed, and I, poor, helpless infant, was betrayed, despoiled and disinherited by my natural protector, by my own father! Poor Claudine! She promised me her testimony for the day on which I should reclaim my rights!”
“And she is gone, carrying her secret with her!” murmured the old fellow in a tone of regret.