“The rest is more amusing,” said Newman. “You had better not lose it.”
Madame de Bellegarde opened her eyes; the scintillations had gone out of them; they were fixed and dead. But she smiled superbly with her narrow little lips, and repeated Newman’s word. “Amusing? Have I killed someone else?”
“I don’t count your daughter,” said Newman, “though I might! Your husband knew what you were doing. I have a proof of it whose existence you have never suspected.” And he turned to the marquis, who was terribly white—whiter than Newman had ever seen anyone out of a picture. “A paper written by the hand, and signed with the name, of Henri-Urbain de Bellegarde. Written after you, madam, had left him for dead, and while you, sir, had gone—not very fast—for the doctor.”
The marquis looked at his mother; she turned away, looking vaguely round her. “I must sit down,” she said in a low tone, going toward the bench on which Newman had been sitting.
“Couldn’t you have spoken to me alone?” said the marquis to Newman, with a strange look.
“Well, yes, if I could have been sure of speaking to your mother alone, too,” Newman answered. “But I have had to take you as I could get you.”
Madame de Bellegarde, with a movement very eloquent of what he would have called her “grit,” her steel-cold pluck and her instinctive appeal to her own personal resources, drew her hand out of her son’s arm and went and seated herself upon the bench. There she remained, with her hands folded in her lap, looking straight at Newman. The expression of her face was such that he fancied at first that she was smiling; but he went and stood in front of her and saw that her elegant features were distorted by agitation. He saw, however, equally, that she was resisting her agitation with all the rigor of her inflexible will, and there was nothing like either fear or submission in her stony stare. She had been startled, but she was not terrified. Newman had an exasperating feeling that she would get the better of him still; he would not have believed it possible that he could so utterly fail to be touched by the sight of a woman (criminal or other) in so tight a place. Madame de Bellegarde gave a glance at her son which seemed tantamount to an injunction to be silent and leave her to her own devices. The marquis stood beside her, with his hands behind him, looking at Newman.
“What paper is this you speak of?” asked the old lady, with an imitation of tranquillity which would have been applauded in a veteran actress.
“Exactly what I have told you,” said Newman. “A paper written by your husband after you had left him for dead, and during the couple of hours before you returned. You see he had the time; you shouldn’t have stayed away so long. It declares distinctly his wife’s murderous intent.”
“I should like to see it,” Madame de Bellegarde observed.