As they passed into the sacristy, M. Andre Hesse heaved a deep sigh.
“I can breathe again,” he murmured.
“Why couldn’t you breathe before, my friend?” asked M. Henri-Robert.
And M. Andre Hesse confessed that he had feared up to the last moment that the dead man would reappear.
“I can’t help it,” was the only response he would make when his friend rallied him. “I cannot bring myself to the idea that Frederic Larsan will stay dead for good.”
And now we all—a dozen or so persons—were gathered in the sacristy. The witnesses signed the register, and the rest of us congratulated the newly wedded pair. The sacristy was yet more dismal than the church, and I might have thought that it was on account of the darkness that I could not perceive Joseph Rouletabille, if the room had not been so small. But, assuredly, he was not there. Mathilde had already asked for him twice, and M. Darzac requested me to go and look for him. I did so, but returned to the vestry without him. He had disappeared from the church.
“How strange it is!” exclaimed M. Darzac. “I can’t understand it. Are you sure that you looked everywhere? He may be in some corner dreaming.”
“I looked everywhere, and I called his name,” I told him.
But M. Darzac was still not satisfied. He wanted to look through the church for himself. His search was better rewarded than mine, for he learned from a beggar, who was sitting in the porch with a tambourine, that Rouletabille had left the church a few minutes before and had been driven away in a hack. When the bridegroom brought this news to his wife, she appeared to be both pained and anxious. She called me to her side and said:
“My dear M. Sainclair, you know that we are to take the train in two hours. Will you hunt up our little friend and bring him to me, and tell him that his strange behaviour is grieving me very much?”