She laughed, and an hour or two ago Mme. de Beaudrillart might have admitted the likelihood of such a motive. But M. Bourget’s visit, and the dreadful possibilities suggested by the blank envelope, had left her ten times as uneasy as before. She shook her head and sighed.
“It is serious. More serious than I thought.”
“You have been listening to that man. I shall never forgive Nathalie for inflicting him upon us. And to hear him talking to Raoul as if the child was his! Of course he has made the most of this affair, if only because it would be such delight to him to humble us.”
“No,” said her mother, firmly, “there you are wrong. He identifies himself with us.”
Claire laughed again, this time contemptuously.
“How could you endure it? It seems to me that no misfortune could be so terrible. Really, Félicie’s idea of the cotton-wool was brilliant, only I imagine it will not do for us all to be seized with deafness. Do you suppose that he employs his time with Raoul in teaching the boy how to economise with his pence? Rose-Marie says his driver was forced to come here like a whirlwind, and got six sous for his pains.” But Mme. de Beaudrillart, to whom, great lady as she was, such details were intensely interesting, scarcely heard the words. Fear of something unknown, something overwhelming, because it had to do with Léon, and Léon’s honour, was shaking her. Personal danger would have found her calm, and the crash of misfortune; this was different. Little fears, little uneasinesses, forgotten as soon as their light touch was removed, trooped forth again, and dared her to ignore them now. Haunting dread lay in the thought that truth might, after all, lie in this accusation, at first scouted with scorn. Léon had never confided in her as to the process by which he was disentangled from his difficulties six years ago, had never said much about M. de Cadanet; had suddenly buried himself at Poissy; had shunned Paris, had evaded her desire to assist in the repayment of the debt; had finally, when pressed, deceived her by passing off an empty envelope as the receipt which he wished her to believe he held in his possession. Each fact might be trifling in itself, but heralding, as they had done, the storm which had burst, they became terribly significant. It was the collapse of faith in her son, the sudden admittance of a frightful doubt, before which her proud spirit quailed. If Léon had done this thing! If the net closing round him were, after all, the strong net of justice, implacable and unpitying—before such a dread she became helpless. Then she recalled his evident uneasiness at the charge—nay, further behind, the fits of depression—so opposed to his light spirit, which had now and then seized him without apparent cause during past years. As she looked back, accusing fingers seemed to start and point, phantom voices cried, “He did it! he did it!” She even believed she heard his father’s voice demanding an account from her of the honour of his son, more—the honour of Poissy, bound up as it was in this De Beaudrillart. It was only by a supreme effort that she forced herself into quietude. The horrible intuition in her heart might, after all, be false. Léon might be able to clear himself, the next letter might bring news to shame her for her want of confidence.
Rigid and white, Mme. de Beaudrillart went about the house through the day, and with steady fingers fashioned some of Félicie’s staring pink roses. But any one who had looked into her room that night would have seen a heaped-up figure lying, still dressed, outside the bed, and heard the stifled cry of a sorely smitten woman, “Léon, Léon!”