In the silence of the cemetery, near the tomb, before that name, Louis-Pièrre Rovère, which seemed almost like the presence of his dead friend, Dantin felt the temptation to reveal to this girl what her father had wished her to know.
They knew each other without ever having met. One word was enough, one name was sufficient, in order that the secret which united them should bring them nearer each other. What Dantin was to Rovère, Rovère had told Marthe again and again.
Then, as if from the depths of the tomb, Rovère had ordered him to speak. Jacques Dantin, in the solemn silence of that City of the Dead, confided to the young girl what her father had tried to tell him. He spoke rapidly, the words, "A legacy—in trust—a fortune" fell from his lips. But the young girl quickly interrupted him with a grand gesture.
"I do not wish to know what any one has told you of me. I am the daughter of a man who awaits me at Blois, who is old, who loves only me, who needs only me, and I need nothing!"
There was in her tone an accent of command, of resolution, which Dantin recognized as one of Rovère's most remarkable characteristics.
Had Dantin known nothing, this sound in the voice, this ardent look on the pale face, would have given him a hint or a suspicion, and have obliged him to think of Rovère. Rovère lived again in this woman in black whom Jacques Dantin saw for the first time.
"Then?" asked this friend of the dead man, as if awaiting an order.
"Then," said the young girl in her deep voice, "when you meet me near this tomb do not speak to me of anything. If you should meet me outside this cemetery, do not recognize me. The secret which was confided to you by the one who sleeps there, is the secret of a dead one whom I adored—my mother; and of a living person whom I reverence—my father!"
She accented the words with a sort of tender, passionate piety, and Jacques Dantin saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
"Now, adieu!" she said.