And Paul threw at Thélénie’s feet the roll of a thousand francs which he had found upon Croque.
The accusation he had made and the tone of conviction in which he spoke made a profound impression upon all the people assembled there. They looked at one another in terror, they turned their eyes away from that woman to whom they had burned incense two days before. Thélénie observed the effect produced by Duronceray’s speech; she reflected that, her accomplice being dead, she could safely deny everything, and, collecting all her resources, she exclaimed:
“I have long known, monsieur, that I was the object of your hatred; to-day you prove that I was right. You turn against me a service that I tried to render, and you invent a series of crimes, of plots, which are utterly ridiculous.—Yes, I did write that letter—why should I deny it, when it proves simply that I wished to prevent a duel which might have deplorable results? I had been told, I had heard—some persons about me say on the night of the fête, after that quarrel—which I deeply regretted—those persons assured me that a meeting had been arranged to take place on the island I described. I believed it, and I conveyed that information to those ladies. As for your fable of the boatman who jumped into the water purposely, and who proves to be my brother—oh! that is too much! I never read anything more improbable in a novel! I never had a brother.”
“But you had a son, madame!” said a voice at the door of the salon, where Beauregard suddenly appeared, leading little Emile by the hand and followed by Jacqueline, his nurse.
Thélénie was terror-stricken by that apparition; all her audacity deserted her. She fell back in her chair, while Beauregard, motioning to the peasant woman to go before him, pointed to the mistress of the house, saying:
“Look, my good woman; you will find the Baronne de Mortagne not at Dieppe, but here!”
“Eh! bless my soul, yes! that’s her for sure; that’s madame; I know her all right! she ain’t changed; she’s still got those big eyes of hers!”
At these words of Jacqueline directed at Thélénie, everybody looked at that mother who had abandoned her child, and whose story Chamoureau had told them two days before.
Overwhelmed, crushed by these successive revelations, which made her known at last for what she was, she could find no word to say; she hid her face in her hands.
“You see, my good woman,” Beauregard continued, “that I was quite right to prevent your going to Dieppe; for she hoped to ship you off with the child to some distant country from which you would never have returned. Oh! madame had laid her plan shrewdly; your presence here embarrassed her! But unluckily for her, her brother—for it was her brother again whom she employed to get rid of you—her brother was very fond of drinking and he was rather loquacious in his cups; so that it was not hard for me to learn from him all that it was important for me to know.”