Stealing cautiously forward, Gilberte, who was as light as a bird, could fly in time, and, disguised as she was, need not fear being recognized. Jean would be there of course, and if she found him alone she would beckon to him and satisfy her frantic impatience to have news of Emile.
The chalet was open; there was no one inside; carpenter's tools were lying about on the floor. Profound silence reigned everywhere. Gilberte walked forward on tiptoe and placed on the table the package and the letter she had brought. Then, as she reflected that objects of value might be too much exposed in a place so ill guarded, she looked about, placed her hand on a door which seemed to open into a closet, and, noticing that the lock was removed, said to herself justly enough that Jean was probably repairing it and would doubtless come and replace it, and that there was nothing better for her to do than to place her treasure in the hands of the most faithful of friends. But as she opened the supposed closet to put the package inside, she found herself on the threshold of a study, wherein everything was in disorder, facing a large portrait of a woman.
Gilberte did not need to look long at the portrait to recognize the original of a miniature which she had seen in her father's hands and had always supposed to be that of the unknown mother who had brought her into the world. If the resemblance had not been most striking, at the first glance, because of the difference in size of the two portraits, yet the attitude, the costume, the very blue shawl which Gilberte had in her hand at that moment, would have convinced her that the miniature had been made at the same time as the large portrait, or rather that it was a reduced copy of it. She stifled a cry of surprise, and, as her chaste imagination refused to grasp the possibility of an adulterous connection, she persuaded herself that, as the result of a secret marriage, of the sort we read about in novels, she was perhaps a near kinswoman, the niece or grand-niece, of Monsieur de Boisguilbault. At that moment she thought that she heard footsteps on the floor above, and, terror-stricken, she threw the package on the mantel and fled with the swiftness of an arrow.
XXXIII
THE STORY OF ONE TOLD BY THE OTHER
A few moments after Gilberte's flight, Jean returned to replace the lock of the study, followed by Monsieur de Boisguilbault, who awaited his departure to order the park to be closed. The carpenter had noticed the marquis's uneasiness and how closely he watched all his movements while he was at work at that door; annoyed by his employer's evident distrust of his curiosity, he raised his head and said with his accustomed outspokenness:
"Pardieu! Monsieur de Boisguilbault, you are terribly afraid that I will look at what you have hidden in there! Just remember that I might have looked at it an hour ago if I had chosen; but I care nothing about it, and I should prefer to have you say: 'Shut your eyes,' instead of watching me as you do."
Monsieur de Boisguilbault's expression changed and he frowned. He glanced into the study and saw that the wind had blown down a piece of green cloth with which he had covered the portrait awkwardly enough, and that Jean must have seen it unless he was blind. Thereupon, he formed a sudden resolution, threw the door wide open, and said with forced calmness:
"I am hiding nothing here; you can look, if you choose."
"Oh! I am not at all curious to see your big books," laughed the carpenter; "I know nothing about them and I can't understand why it was necessary to write so many words just to know how to do what's right. But there's the portrait of your deceased wife! I recognize her, it is her sure enough. How came you to put it here? in my time it was in the château."