"This Ferragus, this Bourignard, or this Monsieur de Funcal, is a demon!" cried Maulincour, after having read it. "Oh, what a frightful maze I put my foot into when I meddled in this matter! Where am I going?

I did wrong, monsieur," he continued, looking at Jules; "but death is the greatest of all expiations, and my death is now approaching. You can ask me whatever you like; I am at your orders."

"Monsieur, you know, of course, where this man is living, and I must know it if it costs me all my fortune to penetrate this mystery. In presence of so cruel an enemy every moment is precious."

"Justin shall tell you all," replied the baron.

At these words the vidame fidgeted on his chair. Auguste rang the bell.

"Justin is not in the house!" cried the vidame, in a hasty manner that told much.

"Well, then," said Auguste, excitedly, "the other servants must know where he is; send a man on horseback to fetch him. Your valet is in Paris, isn't he? He can be found."

The vidame was visibly distressed.

"Justin can't come, my dear boy," said the old man; "he is dead. I wanted to conceal the accident from you, but--"

"Dead!" cried Monsieur de Maulincour,--"dead! When and how?"

"Last night. He had been supping with some old friends, and, I dare say, was drunk; his friends--no doubt they were drunk, too--left him lying in the street, and a heavy vehicle ran over him."

"The convict did not miss _him_; at the first stroke he killed," said Auguste. "He has had less luck with me; it has taken four blows to put me out of the way."

Jules was gloomy and thoughtful.

"Am I to know nothing, then?" he cried, after a long pause. "Your valet seems to have been justly punished. Did he not exceed your orders in calumniating Madame Desmarets to a person named Ida, whose jealousy he roused in order to turn her vindictiveness upon us?"

"Ah, monsieur! in my anger I informed him about Madame Jules," said Auguste.

"Monsieur!" cried the husband, keenly irritated.

"Oh, monsieur!" replied the baron, claiming silence by a gesture, "I am prepared for all. You cannot tell me anything my own conscience has not already told me. I am now expecting the most celebrated of all professors of toxicology, in order to learn my fate. If I am destined to intolerable suffering, my resolution is taken. I shall blow my brains out."

"You talk like a child!" cried the vidame, horrified by the coolness with which the baron said these words. "Your grandmother would die of grief."

"Then, monsieur," said Jules, "am I to understand that there exist no means of discovering in what part of Paris this extraordinary man resides?"

"I think, monsieur," said the old vidame, "from what I have heard poor Justin say, that Monsieur de Funcal lives at either the Portuguese or the Brazilian emba.s.sy. Monsieur de Funcal is a n.o.bleman belonging to both those countries. As for the convict, he is dead and buried. Your persecutor, whoever he is, seems to me so powerful that it would be well to take no decisive measures until you are sure of some way of confounding and crushing him. Act prudently and with caution, my dear monsieur. Had Monsieur de Maulincour followed my advice, nothing of all this would have happened."

Jules coldly but politely withdrew. He was now at a total loss to know how to reach Ferragus. As he pa.s.sed into his own house, the porter told him that Madame had just been out to throw a letter into the post box at the head of the rue de Menars. Jules felt humiliated by this proof of the insight with which the porter espoused his cause, and the cleverness by which he guessed the way to serve him. The eagerness of servants, and their shrewdness in compromising masters who compromised themselves, was known to him, and he fully appreciated the danger of having them as accomplices, no matter for what purpose. But he could not think of his personal dignity until the moment when he found himself thus suddenly degraded. What a triumph for the slave who could not raise himself to his master, to compel his master to come down to his level! Jules was harsh and hard to him. Another fault. But he suffered so deeply! His life till then so upright, so pure, was becoming crafty; he was to scheme and lie. Clemence was scheming and lying. This to him was a moment of horrible disgust. Lost in a flood of bitter feelings, Jules stood motionless at the door of his house. Yielding to despair, he thought of fleeing, of leaving France forever, carrying with him the illusions of uncertainty. Then, again, not doubting that the letter Clemence had just posted was addressed to Ferragus, his mind searched for a means of obtaining the answer that mysterious being was certain to send. Then his thoughts began to a.n.a.lyze the singular good fortune of his life since his marriage, and he asked himself whether the calumny for which he had taken such signal vengeance was not a truth. Finally, reverting to the coming answer, he said to himself:--

"But this man, so profoundly capable, so logical in his every act, who sees and foresees, who calculates, and even divines, our very thoughts, is he likely to make an answer? Will he not employ some other means more in keeping with his power? He may send his answer by some beggar; or in a carton brought by an honest man, who does not suspect what he brings; or in some parcel of shoes, which a shop-girl may innocently deliver to my wife. If Clemence and he have agreed upon such means--"

He distrusted all things; his mind ran over vast tracts and sh.o.r.eless oceans of conjecture. Then, after floating for a time among a thousand contradictory ideas, he felt he was strongest in his own house, and he resolved to watch it as the ant-lion watches his sandy labyrinth.

"Fouguereau," he said to the porter, "I am not at home to any one who comes to see me. If any one calls to see madame, or brings her anything, ring twice. Bring all letters addressed here to me, no matter for whom they are intended."

"Thus," thought he, as he entered his study, which was in the entresol, "I forestall the schemes of this Ferragus. If he sends some one to ask for me so as to find out if Clemence is alone, at least I shall not be tricked like a fool."

He stood by the window of his study, which looked upon the street, and then a final scheme, inspired by jealousy, came into his mind. He resolved to send his head-clerk in his own carriage to the Bourse with a letter to another broker, explaining his sales and purchases and requesting him to do his business for that day. He postponed his more delicate transactions till the morrow, indifferent to the fall or rise of stocks or the debts of all Europe. High privilege of love!--it crushes all things, all interests fall before it: altar, throne, consols!

At half-past three, just the hour at which the Bourse is in full blast of reports, monthly settlements, premiums, etc., Fouguereau entered the study, quite radiant with his news.

"Monsieur, an old woman has come, but very cautiously; I think she's a sly one. She asked for monsieur, and seemed much annoyed when I told her he was out; then she gave me a letter for madame, and here it is."

Fevered with anxiety, Jules opened the letter; then he dropped into a chair, exhausted. The letter was mere nonsense throughout, and needed a key. It was virtually in cipher.

"Go away, Fouguereau." The porter left him. "It is a mystery deeper than the sea below the plummet line! Ah! it must be love; love only is so sagacious, so inventive as this. Ah! I shall kill her."

At this moment an idea flashed through his brain with such force that he felt almost physically illuminated by it. In the days of his toilsome poverty before his marriage, Jules had made for himself a true friend.

The extreme delicacy with which he had managed the susceptibilities of a man both poor and modest; the respect with which he had surrounded him; the ingenious cleverness he had employed to n.o.bly compel him to share his opulence without permitting it to make him blush, increased their friendship. Jacquet continued faithful to Desmarets in spite of his wealth.

Jacquet, a n.o.bly upright man, a toiler, austere in his morals, had slowly made his way in that particular ministry which develops both honesty and knavery at the same time. A clerk in the ministry of Foreign Affairs, he had charge of the most delicate division of its archives.

Jacquet in that office was like a glow-worm, casting his light upon those secret correspondences, deciphering and cla.s.sifying despatches.

Ranking higher than a mere _bourgeois_, his position at the ministry was superior to that of the other subalterns. He lived obscurely, glad to feel that such obscurity sheltered him from reverses and disappointments, and was satisfied to humbly pay in the lowest coin his debt to the country. Thanks to Jules, his position had been much ameliorated by a worthy marriage. An unrecognized patriot, a minister in actual fact, he contented himself with groaning in his chimney-corner at the course of the government. In his own home, Jacquet was an easy-going king,--an umbrella-man, as they say, who hired a carriage for his wife which he never entered himself. In short, to end this sketch of a philosopher unknown to himself, he had never suspected and never in all his life would suspect the advantages he might have drawn from his position,--that of having for his intimate friend a broker, and of knowing every morning all the secrets of the State. This man, sublime after the manner of that nameless soldier who died in saving Napoleon by a "qui vive," lived at the ministry.

In ten minutes Jules was in his friend's office. Jacquet gave him a chair, laid aside methodically his green silk eye-shade, rubbed his hands, picked up his snuff-box, rose, stretched himself till his shoulder-blades cracked, swelled out his chest, and said:--

"What brings you here, Monsieur Desmarets? What do you want with me?"

"Jacquet, I want you to decipher a secret,--a secret of life and death."

"It doesn't concern politics?"

"If it did, I shouldn't come to you for information," said Jules.

"No, it is a family matter, about which I require you to be absolutely silent."

"Claude-Joseph Jacquet, dumb by profession. Don't you know me by this time?" he said, laughing. "Discretion is my lot."

Jules showed him the letter.

"You must read me this letter, addressed to my wife."

"The deuce! the deuce! a bad business!" said Jacquet, examining the letter as a usurer examines a note to be negotiated. "Ha! that's a gridiron letter! Wait a minute."

He left Jules alone for a moment, but returned immediately.

"Easy enough to read, my friend! It is written on the gridiron plan, used by the Portuguese minister under Monsieur de Choiseul, at the time of the dismissal of the Jesuits. Here, see!"

Jacquet placed upon the writing a piece of paper cut out in regular squares, like the paper laces which confectioners wrap round their sugarplums; and Jules then read with perfect ease the words that were visible in the interstices. They were as follows:--

"Don't be uneasy, my dear Clemence; our happiness cannot again be troubled; and your husband will soon lay aside his suspicions.

However ill you may be, you must have the courage to come here to-morrow; find strength in your love for me. Mine for you has induced me to submit to a cruel operation, and I cannot leave my bed. I have had the actual cautery applied to my back, and it was necessary to burn it in a long time; you understand me? But I thought of you, and I did not suffer.

"To baffle Maulincour (who will not persecute us much longer), I have left the protecting roof of the emba.s.sy, and am now safe from all inquiry in the rue des Enfants-Rouges, number 12, with an old woman, Madame Etienne Gruget, mother of that Ida, who shall pay dear for her folly. Come to-morrow, at nine in the morning. I am in a room which is reached only by an interior staircase. Ask for Monsieur Camuset. Adieu; I kiss your forehead, my darling."

Jacquet looked at Jules with a sort of honest terror, the sign of a true compa.s.sion, as he made his favorite exclamation in two separate and distinct tones,--

"The deuce! the deuce!"