"And you are right!" the Marquis replied. "If I succeed, I will make you rich, and place you so high on the social ladder that the greatest names in France will bow before you!"
"Thank you, honored sir. When the hour arrives, I will remind you of your words. But now we must think of Pierre Labarre. Time presses!"
"I am ready. Where are we to find him?"
"Two leagues from here, near the little town of Vagney."
"It is now three o'clock," said the Marquis. "We can surely return here to-night. You had best order the horses at once."
When the Marquis was alone, he bowed his face in his hands.
"If I could believe him!" he murmured. "But I am afraid!"
A few brief words of explanation are here necessary. The Fongereues family re-entered France with the allied armies, and immediately obtained the favor of the king. The old Marquis was elevated to the peerage, and Magdalena felt that her ambitious projects were on the eve of fulfilment. The Vicomte de Talizac easily obtained proof of the death of Simon Fougère; his wife and children had disappeared, and probably perished. The Vicomte, therefore, did not hesitate to claim as sole heir the estate on the death of the Marquis in 1817. But this estate, though considerable, was far less important than he and Magdalena had hoped. The Vicomte was deeply in debt, and his creditors became impatient. If he and the Vicomtesse had not been madly extravagant, all the more so from the restrictions they had so long endured, their revenues would have been more than sufficient. But these two persons, who had not recoiled from a terrible crime to ensure their undisputed possession of the Fongereues fortune, were now carried away by a wild thirst for excitement and gayety. The hôtel they occupied became the scene of perpetual fêtes and the rendezvous of the aristocracy.
Magdalena's son, who now bore the title of the Vicomte de Talizac, brought up amid this mad prodigality, developed early the faults of his nature, which were increased by the foolish indulgence of his mother.