"For what good, Sir Walter? In a month's time you may ask this question of the notary, Jacques Ferrand."
CHAPTER X.
DENUNCIATION.
About ten o'clock in the evening of the day on which Fleur-de-Marie had been carried off by Screech-owl and the Schoolmaster, a man on horseback arrived at the farm, coming, as he said, on the part of Rudolph, to reassure Mrs. George as to the disappearance of her young protegee, who would return to her in a few days. For several very important reasons, added this man, Rudolph begged Mrs. George, in the event of her having anything to send him, not to write him at Paris, but to hand the letter to the courier, who would take charge of it.
This courier was an emissary of Sarah's. By this she tranquilized Mrs. George, and retarded thus for some days the moment when Rudolph must hear of the abduction. In this interval, Sarah hoped to force the notary to favor the unworthy scheme of which we have spoken. This was not all. Sarah wished also to get rid of Madame d'Harville, who inspired her with serious fears, and who would have been lost but for Rudolph's rescue.
On the day when the marquis had followed his wife to the house in the Rue du Temple, where she was to meet Charles Robert, but where Rudolph led her to the Morels, and thus changed the assignation into a call in charity, Sarah's brother Tom went there, easily set Mrs. Pipelet jabbering, and learned that a young lady, on the point of being surprised by her husband, had been saved, thanks to a lodger in the house named Rudolph. Informed of this circumstance, Sarah, possessing no material proof of the rendezvous that Lady d'Harville had given to Charles Robert, conceived another odious plan. It was concocted to send an anonymous letter to the marquis, in order to effect a complete rupture between him and Rudolph, or, at least, to make the marquis so suspicious as to forbid any further intercourse between the prince and his wife.
This letter was thus couched:
"You have been deceived most shamefully. The other day, your wife, advised that you were following her, pretended an imaginary visit of charity; she went to meet a very august personage, who has hired in the Rue du Temple a room in the fourth story, under the name of Rudolph. If you doubt these facts, strange as they may appear, go to the Rue du Temple, No. 17, and inform yourself; paint to yourself the features of the august person spoken of, and you will easily acknowledge that you are the most credulous, good-natured husband who has ever been so sovereignly deceived. Do not neglect this advice; otherwise it will be supposed that you, also are too much.
"THE FRIEND OF PRINCES."
This note was put in the post at five o'clock by Sarah, on the day of her interview with the notary. The same evening, Rudolph went to pay a visit to a foreign embassy: after which it was his intention to go to Madame d'Harville's to announce to her that he had found a charitable intrigue worthy of her. We will conduct the reader to Madame d'Harville's. It will be seen, from the following conversation, that this young lady, in showing herself generous and compassionate towards her husband, whom she had until then treated with extreme coldness, followed already the noble counsels of Rudolph.