"I will obey, mother."

The cure had not waited for this a.s.sent to go and give an order for harnessing the horses. Mme. d'Escorval left the room to write a few lines to a lady friend, whose husband exerted considerable influence in Montaignac. Maurice and Marie-Anne were left alone.

It was the first moment of freedom and solitude which they had found since Marie-Anne's confession.

They stood for a moment, silent and motionless, then Maurice advanced, and clasping her in his arms, he whispered:

"Marie-Anne, my darling, my beloved, I did not know that one could love more fondly than I loved you yesterday; but now--And you--you wish for death when another precious life depends upon yours."

She shook her head sadly.

"I was terrified," she faltered. "The future of shame that I saw--that I still--alas! see before me, appalled me. Now I am resigned. I will uncomplainingly endure the punishment for my horrible fault--I will submit to the insults and disgrace that await me!"

"Insults, to you! Ah! woe to who dares! But will you not now be my wife in the sight of men, as you are in the sight of G.o.d? The failure of your father's scheme sets you free!"

"No, no, Maurice, I am not free! Ah! it is you who are pitiless! I see only too well that you curse me, that you curse the day when we met for the first time! Confess it! Say it!"

Marie-Anne lifted her streaming eyes to his.

"Ah! I should lie if I said that. My cowardly heart has not that much courage! I suffer--I am disgraced and humiliated, but----"

He could not finish; he drew her to him, and their lips and their tears met in one long kiss.

"You love me," exclaimed Maurice, "you love me in spite of all! We shall succeed. I will save your father, and mine--I will save your brother!"

The horses were neighing and stamping in the courtyard. The abbe cried: "Come, let us start." Mme. d'Escorval entered with a letter, which she handed to Maurice.

She clasped in a long and convulsive embrace the son whom she feared she should never see again; then, summoning all her courage, she pushed him away, uttering only the single word:

"Go!"

He departed; and when the sound of the carriage-wheels had died away in the distance, Mme. d'Escorval and Marie-Anne fell upon their knees, imploring the mercy and aid of a just G.o.d.

They could only pray. The cure and Maurice could act.

Abbe Midon's plan, which he explained to young d'Escorval, as the horses dashed along, was as simple as the situation was terrible.

"If, by confessing your own guilt, you could save your father, I should tell you to deliver yourself up, and to confess the whole truth. Such would be your duty. But this sacrifice would be not only useless, but dangerous. Your confession of guilt would only implicate your father still more. You would be arrested, but they would not release him, and you would both be tried and convicted. Let us, then, allow--I will not say justice, for that would be blasphemy--but these blood-thirsty men, who call themselves judges, to pursue their course, and attribute all that you have done to your father. When the trial comes, you will prove his innocence, and produce alibis so incontestable, that they will be forced to acquit him. And I understand the people of our country so well, that I am sure not one of them will reveal our stratagem."

"And if we should not succeed," asked Maurice, gloomily, "what could I do then?"

The question was so terrible that the priest dared not respond to it. He and Maurice were silent during the remainder of the drive.

They reached the city at last, and Maurice saw how wise the abbe had been in preventing him from a.s.suming a disguise.

Armed with the most absolute power, the Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu had closed all the gates of Montaignac save one.

Through this gate all who desired to leave or enter the city were obliged to pa.s.s, and two officers were stationed there to examine all comers and goers, to question them, and to take their name and residence.

At the name "d'Escorval," the two officers evinced such surprise that Maurice noticed it at once.

"Ah! you know what has become of my father!" he exclaimed.

"The Baron d'Escorval is a prisoner, Monsieur," replied one of the officers.

Although Maurice had expected this response, he turned pale.

"Is he wounded?" he asked, eagerly.

"He has not a scratch. But enter, sir, and pa.s.s on."

From the anxious looks of these officers one might have supposed that they feared they should compromise themselves by conversing with the son of so great a criminal.

The carriage rolled beneath the gate-way; but it had not traversed two hundred yards of the Grand Rue before the abbe and Maurice had remarked several posters and notices affixed to the walls.

"We must see what this is," they said, in a breath.

They stopped near one of these notices, before which a reader had already stationed himself; they descended from the carriage, and read the following order:

"article I.--The inmates of the house in which the elder Lacheneur shall be found will be handed over to a military commission for trial.

"article II.--Whoever shall deliver the body of the elder Lacheneur, dead or alive, will receive a reward of twenty thousand francs."

This was signed Duc de Sairmeuse.

"G.o.d be praised!" exclaimed Maurice, "Marie-Anne's father has escaped!

He had a good horse, and in two hours----"

A glance and a nudge of the elbow from the abbe checked him.

The abbe drew his attention to the man standing near them. This man was none other than Chupin.

The old scoundrel had also recognized them, for he took off his hat to the cure, and with an expression of intense covetousness in his eyes, he said: "Twenty thousand francs! what a sum! A man could live comfortably all his life on the interest of it."

The abbe and Maurice shuddered as they re-entered their carriage.

"Lacheneur is lost if this man discovers his retreat," murmured the priest.

"Fortunately, he must have crossed the frontier before this," replied Maurice. "A hundred to one he is beyond reach."

"And if you should be mistaken. What, if wounded and faint from loss of blood, Lacheneur has had only strength to drag himself to the nearest house and ask the hospitality of its inmates?"

"Oh! even in that case he is safe; I know our peasants. There is not one who is capable of selling the life of a proscribed man."

The n.o.ble enthusiasm of youth drew a sad smile from the priest.

"You forget the dangers to be incurred by those who shelter him. Many a man who would not soil his hands with the price of blood might deliver up a fugitive from fear."