“I never can tell you.”
“Speak—speak; you can not surely wish to screen a malefactor from justice?”
“No; but if the said malefactor should be—”
“If he were my own son, I should insist upon your telling me.”
“Well, then, it appeared to me that the robber was your brother-in-law, mirabeau! But I might be mistaken; and, as I said before, fear—”
“Impossible: no, it can not be. Mirabeau a footpad! No, no. You are mistaken, my good friend.”
“Certainly—certainly.”
“Let us not speak any more of this,” said Count du Saillant. “We will return to the drawing-room, and I hope you will be as gay as usual; if not, I shall set you down as a mad-man. I will so manage that our absence shall not be thought any thing of.” And the gentlemen re-entered the drawing room, one a short time before the other.
The visitor succeeded in resuming his accustomed manner; but the count fell into a gloomy reverie, in spite of all his efforts. He could not banish from his mind the extraordinary story he had heard: it haunted him; and at last, worn out with the most painful conjectures, he again took his friend aside, questioned him afresh, and the result was, that a plan was agreed upon for solving the mystery. It was arranged that M. De —— should in the course of the evening mention casually, as it were, that he was engaged on a certain day to meet a party at a friend's house to dinner, and that he purposed coming afterward to take a bed at the château, where he hoped to arrive at about nine in the evening. The announcement was accordingly made in the course of conversation, when all the guests were present—good care being taken that it should be heard by Mirabeau, who at the time was playing a game of chess with the curé.
A week passed away, in the course of which a farmer was stopped and robbed of his purse; and at length the critical night arrived.