“Yes, you hate him!” he said; “you do not like to say so, because the word is not nice. You are—what is it you call it?—you are shocked by the word. But it is so, nevertheless; you hate him, and you have cause to hate him. Yes, I know now who you are. I did not know when I first saw you in Berkshire, but I know now. Launcelot Darrell is one who cannot keep a secret, and he has told me. You are the daughter of that poor old man who killed himself in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine—that is enough! You are a great heart; you would to avenge the death of your father. You saw us that night—the night the wills were change?”
“I did,” Eleanor answered, looking at the man with sovereign contempt. He had spoken of the transaction as coolly as if it had been the most honourable and commonplace business
“You are there in the darkness, and you see us,” exclaimed Monsieur Bourdon, bending over Eleanor and speaking in a confidential whisper, “you watch, you look, you listen, and after, when you go into the house, you denounce Launcelot. You declare the will is forge. The will is change. You were witness, you say; you tell all that you saw! But they do not believe you. But why? Because when you say you have the true will in your pocket, you cannot find it; it is gone.”
The Frenchman said this in a tone of triumph, and then paused suddenly, looking earnestly at Eleanor.
As she returned that look a new light flashed upon her mind. She began to understand the mystery of the lost will.
“It is gone,” cried Monsieur Bourdon, “no trace, no vestige of it remains. You say, search the garden; the garden is search; but no result. Then the despair seizes itself of you. Launcelot mocks himself of you; he laughs at your nose. You find yourself unhappy; they do not believe you; they look coldly at you; they are harsh to you, and you fly from them. It is like that; is it not?”
“Yes,” Eleanor answered.
Her breath came and went quickly; she never removed her eyes from the man’s face. She began to think that her justification was perhaps only to be obtained by the agency of this disreputable Frenchman.
“What, then, of the lost will? It was not swallowed up by the earth. It could not fly itself away into the space! What became of it?”
“You took it from me!” cried Eleanor. “Yes, I remember how closely you brushed against me. The paper was too big to go altogether into the pocket of my dress. The ends were sticking out, and you——”