"On! on!" shouted Pierre, "I can bear it all now!"
"Your poor mother was the victim," continued the priest; "she lay on the hearthstone dead and bleeding. Her bureau had been broken open and rifled of its contents."
"My sister! my sister!" cried the soldier.
"She was gone. The whole surrounding country was searched, but nothing was discovered."
"Maria! Maria! could gold have tempted you? No! no!—dog that I am, to suspect you! Misery has driven me mad!" cried the soldier, dashing his hand against his forehead.
"The whole dreadful crime," said the old priest, "is shrouded in a mystery as appalling as death itself. But God does not permit such deeds to slumber undetected or unavenged. Sooner or later they are brought to light."
"May I prove the instrument of detection!" said the soldier. "Some of the coins that I sent my poor murdered mother were marked—I could recognize them again. Father, you shall take me to my mother's grave. One prayer there—one word with Estelle—and then I will go to Paris; it is the resort of every criminal, and thence it sends forth its crime-blackened ruffians to desecrate this fair earth with horror. Come, father, come—my mother's grave—lead me there at once!"
Years passed away. Save by two or three persons, the crime which had desecrated the hearthstone of a humble village home was forgotten in those great historical events, of which Europe and France were then the theatres. In those days of bloodshed and battle, of victory and triumph, Pierre Lacour, who had commenced his military career as a brave young soldier, might have risen to the highest honors, had he followed the victorious eagles of his emperor. Why might not he rise as well as Murat, Ney, Lannes, or a hundred others? The epaulets of a colonel, nay, the baton of a marshal of France, were prizes within the reach of the lowliest, provided he had the head to plan and the heart to execute daring and chivalric deeds. But his heart no longer bounded like a war horse to the charge of the trumpet and the roll of the drum. He lived for one purpose—to discover the assassin of his mother and the sister, of whom nothing had been heard since the dreadful night of murder and conflagration. To facilitate his purposes, he had procured himself to be enrolled in the unrivalled police force of Fouché. That wily minister had no more able assistant under his command, and none in that fraternity (of which many were miscreants, who had purchased impunity for crime by selling the lives and liberties of former accomplices and comrades) who could compare with him for purity of life and elevation of motive. To punish evil for the sake of society, was the aim of the young police officer. None more untiring or intelligent than he in ferreting out the perpetrators of deeds of violence. In the criminals whose arrest he effected, and whose conviction he secured, he expected, constantly, to find some cognizant of the offence which had thrown so black a shadow over his life. He read with eager avidity the dying confessions of the condemned. He caught eagerly every syllable that fell from the lips of men, who, standing on the brink of eternity, seemed to be impressed with the necessity of revealing truth. But for years his expectations were baffled.
At last, all Paris was thrown into commotion by the murder of a Colonel Belleville, an officer who had served with distinction in the grand army, and who was found dead, one morning, in a room at house number 96 Rue La Harpe. The only mark of violence discovered by the surgeons was a dark, purple spot, about the size of a five-franc piece, on the left temple. The police were apprised that, on the morning of the day before, a slight young man, with fair hair and polished address, giving his name as Adolph Belmont, had hired the room at number 96 Rue La Harpe, and paid a week's rent in advance. It further appeared that, in the evening, just after the close of the performances at the opera, this young man had come home in company with an officer of the army. After the lapse of about an hour, the young man, Belmont, left the house, telling the porter he should return in a few minutes. But he never reappeared. About ten o'clock in the morning, the porter went up to his room, and found the door locked. He knocked and called, without receiving any answer. Looking through the keyhole, he saw the feet and legs of a man, in military boots and pantaloons, lying on the floor. Much alarmed and disturbed, he sought out a commissary of police, and that functionary, breaking open the door, discovered the body of Colonel Belleville. This tragedy excited an unusual sensation. Even the emperor heard of it, and, from his private purse provided a large sum of money to be paid as a reward to the discoverer of the perpetrator of this fearful crime.