“Well, Toni,” Nicolas continued, “I understand that you are to marry the sergeant’s daughter. My faith, you look prosperous. Count Delorme’s money must have done you a lot of good.”
“I never had any of Count Delorme’s money!” burst out Toni.
“Who is lying now?” murmured Nicolas softly. “What about the twenty-franc piece?”
“That was certainly a very neat job of yours, Toni,” said Pierre. “I have never seen a man done for quicker than you did for Count Delorme. One blow like this—” He drew off and went through a pantomime of giving Nicolas a blow on the side of the head. Nicolas, likewise pretending, tumbled over in his chair as Count Delorme had fallen over in the dark at the Château Bernard. It made Toni sick to see them. They laughed, after they had gone through with this mimic tragedy, and began to drink their wine. Then they again abused Paul Verney, and Toni said nothing. He scorned to defend his friend from two such scoundrels as those before him and he longed to get away, but that strange and inscrutable fear of them nailed him to his chair. Presently Nicolas said to him:
“Toni, we might as well tell you the truth. Lieutenant Verney is to die.”
To die! Paul, so full of life, so happy, only yesterday married! He saw Paul’s smiling face as he waved his hand back to Toni when he drove off in the open carriage with Lucie, through the golden dusk of the June evening. But he did not quite take in what Nicolas meant.
“Yes,” said Pierre, “have you never heard, my man, of officers who abused and ill-treated their men, who were found dead like Count Delorme?—I won’t say murdered—that’s an ugly word to say. But it isn’t altogether safe for an officer to persecute a man, particularly a couple of men—it’s just as well to make an example of an officer like that once in a while.”
A cold horror came upon Toni. After a moment he spoke.
“So you mean to waylay Lieutenant Verney as you did Count Delorme?” he asked.