"M'sieu, all know, it is true, of the vow, but none know the reason for it. I have kept my faith, m'sieu."
"But she, my sister, she is so flighty, so excitable—she may have told a thousand times!"
"I think not, m'sieu."
"Father Rielle is unsuspecting; likewise Dr. Renaud. Well, well, who gains by considering evil? Not one so weak and battered as I. Nevertheless, I will walk, madame. I will conquer this fear and this weakness and will show the strength and temper of a Clairville, of a De Clairville, I should say. Open then, madame."
Thus with his black skull-cap on his bald head, and the faded claret and silver habit upon his shrunken limbs, he tottered over the threshold of his disorderly, uncared for room which he had occupied without one moment's intermission, night and day, summer and winter, for eight years, ten months and four days, and madame, preceding him, watched in an agony of fear but also of hope—yonder was a new field for her powers of cleansing and purifying. Dust in thick rolls, cobwebs in floating black triangular and looped clusters, stale odours and rubbish—the apartment which had served as bedroom, dining-room, salon and study so long, would naturally be in a disgraceful condition. Henry Clairville's ghost it was that passed from that room to the hall, but the ghost walked—more than Henry Clairville had done for nine years.
The door of the chief salon was open, and he entered, Mme. Poussette assisting him, still with clasped hands and awestruck eyes, and, although all the changes which had been wrought by her indefatigable fingers could not be appreciated by him, as it was so long since he had seen the room, he missed something. The suit, hanging for years upon its common nail, till it was encrusted with flyspecks, riddled with moth-holes, and tarnished, rusty and faded, now covered his meagre frame, but the other things he looked for he failed to find. He gazed at the walls, perceiving the one old, cracked and discoloured painting.
"Where are the others?" he demanded piteously. "There were four others, all valuable, all of great value."
"There was but this one when I came, m'sieu."
"Then Pauline has sold them—to keep that wretched child alive, to pay for its board and keep and tendresse—tendresse, perhaps, on part of some one while I—I have been neglected and kept short of the things I might have had—the wine, the comforts, the fruits! Ah—but I am a most unfortunate man, I who should be seigneur of the parish! Is it not so, madame? Here have I been starving and yet—there was money, you see—my sister had money all the time!"
Madame's lips moved; she said nothing. Far from having suffered privation during her stay at Clairville, she had been able to provide both for herself and the invalid, food and drink of the best quality procurable in that part—the Archambaults having hoarded large quantities of the supplies sent up by Poussette's "peep". The love of acquisition for its own sake had spread even among the youngest members of the family, and had one demanded suddenly of any of them the simplest meal, one would have been met by violent protestations that there was nothing in the house! To such an extent had this smuggling and hoarding spread that in looking through the kitchen and cellars madame had encountered a great store of provisions, mostly in good condition; sacks and barrels full of vegetables, apples, winter pears and nuts; tins full of bread and cakes, some mouldy, some fresh, and various kegs and bottles full of wine and spirits.