By way of reply, de Vasselot laid upon the table in front of Colonel Gilbert, the nugget no larger than a pigeon's egg, that Mademoiselle Brun had found in the débris of the landslip. The colonel looked at it, and gave a short laugh. He was too indolent a man to feel an acute curiosity. But there were many questions he would have liked to ask at that moment. He knew that de Vasselot was only the spokesman of another who deliberately remained in the background. Lory had not found the gold, he had not pieced together with the patience of a clocksmith the wheels within wheels that Colonel Gilbert had constructed through the careful years. The whole story had been handed to him whom it most concerned, complete in itself like a barrister's brief, and de Vasselot was not setting it forth with much skill, but bluntly, simply and generously like a soldier.
“Surely I have said enough,” were his next words, and it is possible that the colonel and Mademoiselle Brun alone understood the full meaning of the words.
“Yes, monsieur,” said Gilbert at length, “I think you have.”
And he moved towards the door in an odd, sidelong way. He had taken only three steps, when he swung round on his heel with a sharp exclamation. The Abbé Susini, with blazing eyes—half mad with rage—had flown at him like a terrier.
“Ah!” said the colonel, catching him by the two wrists, and holding him at arm's length with steady northern nerve and muscle. “I know you Corsicans too well to turn my back to one.”
He threw the abbé back, so that the little man fell heavily against the table; Susini recovered himself with the litheness of a wild animal, but when he flew at the closed door again it was Denise who stood in front of it.
CHAPTER XXVIII. GOLD.
“I do believe yourself against yourself,
And will henceforward rather die than doubt.”