The duke and the marquis were with Mme. Blanche in the little salon at the end of the main hall.

Martial hastened there, followed by a crowd of wondering guests, who, foreseeing a stormy scene, were determined not to lose a syllable.

He walked directly to M. de Courtornieu, who was standing by the fireplace, and handing him the letter:

"Read!" said he, in a terrible voice.

M. de Courtornieu obeyed. He became livid; the paper trembled in his hands; his eyes fell, and he was obliged to lean against the marble mantel for support.

"I do not understand," he stammered: "no, I do not understand."

The duke and Mme. Blanche both sprang forward.

"What is it?" they asked in a breath; "what has happened?"

With a rapid movement, Martial tore the paper from the hands of the Marquis de Courtornieu, and addressing his father:

"Listen to this letter," he said, imperiously.

Three hundred people were a.s.sembled there, but the silence was so profound that the voice of the young marquis penetrated to the farthest extremity of the hall as he read:

"Monsieur le marquis--In exchange for a dozen lines that threatened you with ruin, you promised us, upon the honor of your name, the life of Baron d'Escorval.

"You did, indeed, bring the ropes by which he was to make his escape, but they had been previously cut, and my father was precipitated to the rocks below.

"You have forfeited your honor, Monsieur. You have soiled your name with ineffaceable opprobrium. While so much as a drop of blood remains in my veins, I will leave no means untried to punish you for your cowardice and vile treason.

"By killing me you would, it is true, escape the chastis.e.m.e.nt I am reserving for you. Consent to fight with me. Shall I await you to-morrow on the Reche? At what hour? With what weapons?

"If you are the vilest of men, you can appoint a rendezvous, and then send your gendarmes to arrest me. That would be an act worthy of you.

"Maurice d'Escorval."

The duke was in despair. He saw the secret of the baron's flight made public--his political prospects ruined.

"Hush!" he said, hurriedly, and in a low voice; "hush, wretched man, you will ruin us!"

But Martial seemed not even to hear him. When he had finished his reading:

"Now, what do you think?" he demanded, looking the Marquis de Courtornieu full in the face.

"I am still unable to comprehend," said the old n.o.bleman, coldly.

Martial lifted his hand; everyone believed that he was about to strike the man who had been his father-in-law only a few hours.

"Very well! I comprehend!" he exclaimed. "I know now who that officer was who entered the room in which I had deposited the ropes--and I know what took him there."

He crumbled the letter between his hands and threw it in M. de Courtornieu's face, saying:

"Here is your reward--coward!"

Overwhelmed by this _denouement_ the marquis sank into an arm-chair, and Martial, still holding Jean Lacheneur by the arm, was leaving the room, when his young wife, wild with despair, tried to detain him.

"You shall not go!" she exclaimed, intensely exasperated; "you shall not! Where are you going? To rejoin the sister of the man, whom I now recognize?"

Beside himself, Martial pushed his wife roughly aside.

"Wretch!" said he, "how dare you insult the n.o.blest and purest of women?

Ah, well--yes--I am going to find Marie-Anne. Farewell!"

And he pa.s.sed on.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

The ledge of rock upon which Baron d'Escorval and Corporal Bavois rested in their descent from the tower was very narrow.

In the widest place it did not measure more than a yard and a half, and its surface was uneven, cut by innumerable fissures and crevices, and sloped suddenly at the edge. To stand there in the daytime, with the wall of the tower behind one, and the precipice at one's feet, would have been considered very imprudent.

Of course, the task of lowering a man from this ledge, at dead of night, was perilous in the extreme.

Before allowing the baron to descend, honest Bavois took every possible precaution to save himself from being dragged over the verge of the precipice by the weight he would be obliged to sustain.

He placed his crowbar firmly in a crevice of the rock, then bracing his feet against the bar, he seated himself firmly, throwing his shoulders well back, and it was only when he was sure of his position that he said to the baron:

"I am here and firmly fixed, comrade; now let yourself down."

The sudden parting of the rope hurled the brave corporal rudely against the tower wall, then he was thrown forward by the rebound.

His unalterable _sang-froid_ was all that saved him.

For more than a minute he hung suspended over the abyss into which the baron had just fallen, and his hands clutched at the empty air.

A hasty movement, and he would have fallen.

But he possessed a marvellous power of will, which prevented him from attempting any violent effort. Prudently, but with determined energy, he screwed his feet and his knees into the crevices of the rock, feeling with his hands for some point of support, and gradually sinking to one side, he finally succeeded in dragging himself from the verge of the precipice.

It was time, for a cramp seized him with such violence that he was obliged to sit down and rest for a moment.

That the baron had been killed by his fall, Bavois did not doubt for an instant. But this catastrophe did not produce much effect upon the old soldier, who had seen so many comrades fall by his side on the field of battle.

What did _amaze_ him was the breaking of the rope--a rope so large that one would have supposed it capable of sustaining the weight of ten men like the baron.

As he could not, by reason of the darkness, see the ruptured place, Bavois felt it with his finger; and, to his inexpressible astonishment, he found it smooth. No filaments, no rough bits of hemp, as usual after a break; the surface was perfectly even.

The corporal comprehended what Maurice had comprehended below.