"What! Do you suppose--" said Monsieur de l'Estorade, not finishing his idea.

"I don't know; but monsieur has been very gloomy the last few days."

"To break the seal of a letter not addressed to us is always a serious thing to do," remarked the peer of France. "This bears my wife's address, but--in point of fact--it was never sent to her; in short, it is most embarra.s.sing."

"But if by reading it some misfortune might be averted?"

"Yes, yes; that is just what keeps me in doubt."

Here Madame de l'Estorade cut the matter short by entering the room.

Lucas had told her of the unexpected arrival of Philippe.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked with anxious curiosity.

The apprehensions Sallenauve had expressed the night before as to Marie-Gaston's condition returned to her mind. As soon as Philippe had repeated the explanations he had already given to her husband, she broke the seals of the letter.

Whatever may have been the contents of that disquieting epistle, nothing was reflected on Madame de l'Estorade's face.

"You say that your master left Ville d'Avray in company with an English gentleman," she said to Philippe. "Did he seem to go unwillingly, as if yielding to violence?"

"No, far from that, madame; he seemed to be rather cheerful."

"Well, there is nothing that need make us uneasy. This letter was written some days ago, and, in spite of its three black seals, it has no reference to anything that has happened since."

Philippe bowed and went away. As soon as husband and wife were alone together, Monsieur de l'Estorade said, stretching out his hand for the letter,--

"What did he write about?"

"No, don't read it," said the countess, not giving him the letter.

"Why not?"

"It would pain you. It is enough for me to have had the shock; I could scarcely control myself before that old servant."

"Does it refer to suicide?"

Madame de l'Estorade nodded her head in affirmation.

"A real, immediate intention?"

"The letter is dated yesterday morning; and apparently, if it had not been for the providential arrival of that Englishman, the poor fellow would have taken advantage of Monsieur de Sallenauve's absence last night to kill himself."

"The Englishman must have suspected his intention, and carried him off to divert him from it. If that is so, he won't let him out of his sight."

"And we may also count on Monsieur Sallenauve, who has probably joined them by this time."

"Then I don't see that there is anything so terrible in the letter"; and again he offered to take it.

"No," said Madame de l'Estorade, drawing back, "if I ask you not to read it. Why give yourself painful emotions? The letter not only expresses the intention of suicide, but it shows that our poor friend is completely out of his mind."

At this instant piercing screams from Rene, her youngest child, put Madame de l'Estorade into one of those material agitations which she less than any other woman was able to control.

"My G.o.d!" she cried, as she rushed from the study, "what has happened?"

Less ready to be alarmed, Monsieur de l'Estorade contented himself by going to the door and asking a servant what was the matter.

"Oh, nothing, Monsieur le comte," replied the man. "Monsieur Rene in shutting a drawer pinched his finger; that is all."

The peer of France thought it unnecessary to convey himself to the scene of action; he knew, by experience in like cases, that he must let his wife's exaggerated maternal solicitude have free course, on pain of being sharply snubbed himself. As he returned to his desk, he noticed lying on the ground the famous letter, which Madame de l'Estorade had evidently dropped in her hasty flight. Opportunity and a certain fatality which appears to preside over the conduct of all human affairs, impelled Monsieur de l'Estorade, who thought little of the shock his wife had dreaded for him, to satisfy his curiosity by reading the letter.

Marie-Gaston wrote as follows:--

Madame,--This letter will seem to you less amusing than those I addressed to you from Arcis-sur-Aube. But I trust you will not be alarmed by the decision which I now announce. I am going to rejoin my wife, from whom I have been too long separated; and this evening, shortly after midnight, I shall be with her, never to part again.

You have, no doubt, said to yourselves--you and Sallenauve--that I was acting strangely in not visiting her grave; that is a remark that two of my servants made the other day, not being aware that I overheard them. I should certainly be a great fool to go and look at a stone in the cemetery which can make me no response, when every night, at twelve o'clock, I hear a little rap on the door of my room, and our dear Louise comes in, not changed at all, except, as I think, more plump and beautiful. She has had great trouble in obtaining permission from Marie, queen of angels, to withdraw me from earth. But last night she brought me formal leave, sealed with green wax; and she also gave me a tiny vial of hydrocyanic acid. A single drop of that acid puts us to sleep, and on waking up we find ourselves on the other side.

Louise desired me to give you a message from her. I am to tell you that Monsieur de l'Estorade has a disease of the liver and will not live long, and that after his death you are to marry Sallenauve, because, on the _other side_, husbands and wives who really love each other are reunited; and she thinks we shall all four--she and I and you and Sallenauve--be much happier together than if we had your present husband, who is very dull, and whom you married reluctantly.

My message given, nothing remains for me, madame, but to wish you all the patience you need to continue for your allotted time in this low world, and to subscribe myself Your very affectionately devoted

Marie-Gaston.

If, after reading this letter, it had occurred to Monsieur de l'Estorade to look at himself in the gla.s.s, he would have seen, in the sudden convulsion and discoloration of his face, the outward and visible signs of the terrible blow which his unfortunate curiosity had brought down upon him. His heart, his mind, his self-respect staggered under one and the same shock; the madness evident in the sort of prediction made about him only added to his sense of its horror. Presently convincing himself, like a mussulman, that madmen have the gift of second sight, he believed he was a lost man, and instantly a stabbing pain began on his liver side, while in the direction of Sallenauve, his predicted successor, an awful hatred succeeded to his mild good-will. But at the same time, conscious of the total want of reason and even of the absurdity of the impression which had suddenly surged into his mind, he was afraid lest its existence should be suspected, and he looked about him to see in what way he could conceal from his wife his fatal indiscretion, the consequences of which must forever weigh upon his life. It was certain, he thought, that if she found the paper in his study she would deduce therefrom the fact that he had read it. Rising from his desk, he softly opened the door leading from the study to the salon, crossed the latter room on tiptoe, and dropped the letter at the farther end of it, as Madame de l'Estorade might suppose she had herself done in her hasty departure. Then returning to his study, he scattered his papers over his desk, like a school-boy up to mischief, who wants to mislead his master by a show of application, intending to appear absorbed in his accounts when his wife returned. Useless to add that he listened with keen anxiety lest some other person than she should come into the salon; in which case he determined to rush out and prevent other eyes from reading the dreadful secrets contained in that paper.

Presently, however, the voice of Madame de l'Estorade, speaking to some one at the door of the salon, rea.s.sured him as to the success of his trick, and a moment later she entered the study accompanied by Monsieur Octave de Camps. Going forward to receive his visitor, he was able to see through the half-opened door the place where he had thrown the letter. Not only had it disappeared, but he detected a movement which a.s.sured him that Madame de l'Estorade had tucked it away in that part of her gown where Louis XIV. did not dare to search for the secrets of Mademoiselle d'Hautefort.

"I have come, my dear friend," said Monsieur de Camps, "to get you to go with me to Rastignac's, as agreed on last night."

"Very good," said the peer, putting away his papers with a feverish haste that plainly indicated he was not in his usual state of mind.

"Don't you feel well?" asked Madame de l'Estorade, who knew her husband by heart too well not to be struck by the singular stupefaction of his manner, while at the same time, looking in his face, she saw the signs of internal convulsion.

"True," said Monsieur de Camps, "you certainly do not look so well as usual. If you prefer it, we will put off this visit."

"No, not at all," replied Monsieur de l'Estorade. "I have tired myself with this work, and I need the air. But what was the matter with Rene?"

he inquired of his wife, whose attention he felt was unpleasantly fixed upon him. "What made him cry like that?"

"Oh, a mere nothing!" she replied, not relaxing her attention.

"Well, my dear fellow," said the peer, trying to take an easy tone, "just let me change my coat and I'll be with you."

When the countess was alone with Monsieur de Camps, she said, rather anxiously,--

"Don't you think Monsieur de l'Estorade seems very much upset?"

"Yes; as I said just now, he does not look like himself. But the explanation he gave seems sufficient. This office life is bad for the health. I have never been as well as since I am actively engaged about my iron-works."