"In truth," replied the advocate, seating himself, "I have experienced a rude shock."

Noel was making visibly the greatest efforts to appear calm, to listen to the old fellow, and to answer him. Old Tabaret, as much disquieted on his side, perceived nothing.

"At least, my dear boy," said he, "tell me how this happened?"

The young man hesitated a moment, as if consulting with himself. No doubt he was unprepared for this point blank question, and knew not what answer to make; at last he replied,--

"Madame Gerdy has suffered a severe shock in learning from a paragraph in this newspaper that a woman in whom she takes a strong interest has been a.s.sa.s.sinated."

"Ah!" replied old Tabaret.

The old fellow was in a fever of embarra.s.sment. He wanted to question Noel, but was restrained by the fear of revealing the secret of his a.s.sociation with the police. Indeed he had almost betrayed himself by the eagerness with which he exclaimed,--

"What! your mother knew the Widow Lerouge?"

By an effort he restrained himself, and with difficulty dissembled his satisfaction; for he was delighted to find himself so unexpectedly on the trace of the antecedents of the victim of La Jonchere.

"She was," continued Noel, "the slave of Madame Gerdy, devoted to her in every way! She would have sacrificed herself for her at a sign from her hand."

"Then you, my dear friend, you knew this poor woman!"

"I had not seen her for a very long time," replied Noel, whose voice seemed broken by emotion, "but I knew her well. I ought even to say I loved her tenderly. She was my nurse."

"She, this woman?" stammered old Tabaret.

This time he was thunderstruck. Widow Lerouge Noel's nurse? He was most unfortunate. Providence had evidently chosen him for its instrument, and was leading him by the hand. He was about to obtain all the information, which half an hour ago he had almost despaired of procuring. He remained seated before Noel amazed and speechless. Yet he understood, that, unless he would compromise himself, he must speak.

"It is a great misfortune," he murmured at last.

"What it is for Madame Gerdy, I cannot say," replied Noel with a gloomy air; "but, for me, it is an overwhelming misfortune! I am struck to the heart by the blow which has slain this poor woman. Her death, M.

Tabaret, has annihilated all my dreams of the future, and probably overthrown my most cherished hopes. I had to avenge myself for cruel injuries; her death breaks the weapon in my hands, and reduces me to despair, to impotence. Alas! I am indeed unfortunate."

"You unfortunate?" cried old Tabaret, singularly affected by his dear Noel's sadness. "In heaven's name, what has happened to you?"

"I suffer," murmured the advocate, "and very cruelly. Not only do I fear that the injustice is irreparable; but here am I totally without defence delivered over to the shafts of calumny. I may be accused of inventing falsehood, of being an ambitious intriguer, having no regard for truth, no scruples of conscience."

Old Tabaret was puzzled. What connection could possibly exist between Noel's honour and the a.s.sa.s.sination at La Jonchere? His brain was in a whirl. A thousand troubled and confused ideas jostled one another in inextricable confusion.

"Come, come, Noel," said he, "compose yourself. Who would believe any calumny uttered about you? Take courage, have you not friends? am I not here? Have confidence, tell me what troubles you, and it will be strange, indeed if between us two--"

The advocate started to his feet, impressed by a sudden resolution.

"Well! yes," interrupted he, "yes, you shall know all. In fact, I am tired of carrying all alone a secret that is stifling me. The part I have been playing irritates and wearies me. I have need of a friend to console me. I require a counsellor whose voice will encourage me, for one is a bad judge of his own cause, and this crime has plunged me into an abyss of hesitations."

"You know," replied M. Tabaret kindly, "that I regard you as my own son.

Do not scruple to let me serve you."

"Know then," commenced the advocate,--"but no, not here: what I have to say must not be overheard. Let us go into my study."

CHAPTER IV.

When Noel and old Tabaret were seated face to face in Noel's study, and the door had been carefully shut, the old fellow felt uneasy, and said: "What if your mother should require anything."

"If Madame Gerdy rings," replied the young man drily, "the servant will attend to her."

This indifference, this cold disdain, amazed old Tabaret, accustomed as he was to the affectionate relations always existing between mother and son.

"For heaven's sake, Noel," said he, "calm yourself. Do not allow yourself to be overcome by a feeling of irritation. You have, I see, some little pique against your mother, which you will have forgotten to-morrow. Don't speak of her in this icy tone; but tell me what you mean by calling her Madame Gerdy?"

"What I mean?" rejoined the advocate in a hollow tone,--"what I mean?"

Then rising from his arm-chair, he took several strides about the room, and, returning to his place near the old fellow, said,--

"Because, M. Tabaret, Madame Gerdy is not my mother!"

This sentence fell like a heavy blow on the head of the amateur detective.

"Oh!" he said, in the tone one a.s.sumes when rejecting an absurd proposition, "do you really know what you are saying, Noel? Is it credible? Is it probable?"

"It is improbable," replied Noel with a peculiar emphasis which was habitual to him: "it is incredible, if you will; but yet it is true.

That is to say, for thirty-three years, ever since my birth, this woman has played a most marvellous and unworthy comedy, to enn.o.ble and enrich her son,--for she has a son,--at my expense!"

"My friend," commenced old Tabaret, who in the background of the picture presented by this singular revelation saw again the phantom of the murdered Widow Lerouge.

But Noel heard not, and seemed hardly in a state to hear. The young man, usually so cold, so self-contained, could no longer control his anger.

At the sound of his own voice, he became more and more animated, as a good horse might at the jingling of his harness.

"Was ever man," continued he, "more cruelly deceived, more miserably duped, than I have been! I, who loved this woman, who knew not how to show my affection for her, who, for her sake, sacrificed my youth! How she must have laughed at me! Her infamy dates from the moment when for the first time she took me on her knees; and, until these few days past, she has sustained without faltering her execrable role. Her love for me was nothing but hypocrisy! her devotion, falsehood! her caresses, lies! And I adored her! Ah! why can I not take back all the embraces I bestowed on her in exchange for her Judas kisses? And for what was all this heroism of deception, this caution, this duplicity? To betray me more securely, to despoil me, to rob me, to give to her b.a.s.t.a.r.d all that lawfully appertained to me; my name, a n.o.ble name, my fortune, a princely inheritance!"

"We are getting near it!" thought old Tabaret, who was fast relapsing into the colleague of M. Gevrol; then aloud he said, "This is very serious, all that you have been saying, my dear Noel, terribly serious.

We must believe Madame Gerdy possessed of an amount of audacity and ability rarely to be met with in a woman. She must have been a.s.sisted, advised, compelled perhaps. Who have been her accomplices? She could never have managed this unaided; perhaps her husband himself."

"Her husband!" interrupted the advocate, with a laugh. "Ah! you too have believed her a widow. Pshaw! She never had a husband, the defunct Gerdy never existed. I was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, dear M. Tabaret, very much a b.a.s.t.a.r.d; Noel, son of the girl Gerdy and an unknown father!"

"Ah!" cried the old fellow; "that then was the reason why your marriage with Mademoiselle Levernois was broken off four years ago?"

"Yes, my friend, that was the reason. And what misfortunes might have been averted by this marriage with a young girl whom I loved! However I did not complain to her whom I then called my mother. She wept, she accused herself, she seemed ready to die of grief: and I, poor fool! I consoled her as best I could, I dried her tears, and excused her in her own eyes. No, there was no husband. Do such women as she have husbands?

She was my father's mistress; and, on the day when he had had enough of her, he took up his hat and threw her three hundred thousand francs, the price of the pleasures she had given him."

Noel would probably have continued much longer to pour forth his furious denunciations; but M. Tabaret stopped him. The old fellow felt he was on the point of learning a history in every way similar to that which he had imagined; and his impatience to know whether he had guessed aright, almost caused him to forget to express any sympathy for his friend's misfortunes.

"My dear boy," said he, "do not let us digress. You ask me for advice; and I am perhaps the best adviser you could have chosen. Come, then, to the point. How have you learned this? Have you any proofs? where are they?"

The decided tone in which the old fellow spoke, should no doubt, have awakened Noel's attention; but he did not notice it. He had not leisure to reflect. He therefore answered,--

"I have known the truth for three weeks past. I made the discovery by chance. I have important moral proofs; but they are mere presumptive evidence. A word from Widow Lerouge, one single word, would have rendered them decisive. This word she cannot now p.r.o.nounce, since they have killed her; but she had said it to me. Now, Madame Gerdy will deny all. I know her; with her head on the block, she will deny it. My father doubtless will turn against me. I am certain, and I possess proofs; now this crime makes my cert.i.tude but a vain boast, and renders my proofs null and void!"