"I ascertained," pursued the undaunted maiden, "that the necessary quantity of verdigris so to affect one little cake out of many as almost to produce coma in one who had taken a single bite must be so large that a copper cooking-plate would have to be thickly buttered with it. Now Bertrand excused himself on the plea that the plate in use was found to be 'not quite clean.' If he had buttered it then was your 'accident' not due to inadvertence."
"What proof have you that the cakes were so heavily loaded?"
"The fact that the dog died within half-an-hour; that I retained two which I intend presenting to madame that she may have them analysed in Paris."
"A pretty story, ingenious as wicked. No one saw the dog perish but yourself. What evidence is there, except your own, that the cakes in your possession are in the same condition as when placed on the table? Are you sure you have any cakes at all?"
There was such an air of mischievous satisfaction underlying the tone of banter that Toinon's heart stood still. "How are you sure--" she began, then sped swiftly from the room, to return in a few moments white as a sheet and breathless.
"They are gone," she panted, "gone! You discovered where they were concealed, you wicked man, and have destroyed them!"
The abbé rose leisurely from the floor and broke into a shout of laughter. "Dear ladies," he apologised, "you must forgive so vulgar a display of merriment, but the jest is too, too good. What subtle forms, nowadays, will not the malice of the enemy assume! Unfortunate noblesse! Unjust and cruel age! The inscrutable powers permit us to be hauled to prison, conducted to the shambles, but allow us to leave the world with characters unstained. The mob would trump up charges against us now to justify their deeds; but the charges are so shallow and so foolish that they defeat their ends. Poisoned cakes! Pah! Unhappy girl, you who have received a superior education should have soared above such folly. It was the rumour that spread from Paris about the king and queen and the poisoned food at the Tuileries that put this absurd notion in your head. Madame de Brèze, I grieve that so untoward an incident as this should have occurred during your stay among us, which we have all striven to make a pleasant one. We have kept it from you, but it is true, to our misfortune, that the spirit of the province is menacing. There is nothing that the peasants will not believe against an aristo. If you sallied forth and announced that I, the Abbé Pharamond, am specially partial to boiled baby, served aux choux, there is not one who would not believe you. This girl is betrothed to Jean Boulot, the gamekeeper, who deliberately left a respectable service to make himself notorious at Blois as the most rabid of all the Jacobins, and it is obvious that she acts now under his influence, regardless of long service under the marquise and of the many benefits received. Alack! the ingratitude of those who rend the hand that caresses them is very hard to bear."
"Madame, you do not believe him?" cried Toinon, throwing herself at Gabrielle's feet and anxiously searching her face. "You know that the man is lying!"
"Yes, I know," Gabrielle whispered as she bent to kiss her brow. "I know you have spoken truth, but we are powerless."
She leaned back, supporting her head wearily upon her arm, perfectly composed in demeanour, while Toinon, her face buried in her lap, sobbed as if her heart were breaking.