Baron Trigault's Vengeance by Emile Gaboriau (you can read anyone txt) 📕

“Come, make haste,” rejoined Wilkie, indignantly, and following the servant, he was ushered into a room which had already been divested of its hangings, curtains, and furniture. He here found Madame d’Argeles engaged in packing a large trunk with household linen and sundry articles of clothing.

By a sort of miracle the unfortunate woman had survived the terrible shock which had at first threatened to have an immediately fatal effect. Still she had none the less received her death-blow. It was only necessary to look at her to be assured of that. She was so greatly changed that when M. Wilkie’s eyes first fell on her, he asked himself if this were really the same person whom he had met on the previous evening. Henceforth she would be an old woman. You would have taken her for over fifty, so terrible had been the sufferings caused her by the shameful conduct of her son. In this sad-eyed, haggard-faced woman, clad in black, no one would have recognized the notorious Lia d’Argeles, who, only the evening before, had driven round the lake, reclining on the cushions of her victoria, and eclipsing all the women around her by the splendor of her toilette. Nothing now remained of the gay worldling but the golden hair which she was condemned to see always the same, since its tint had been fixed by dyes as indelible as the stains upon her past.

She rose with difficulty when M. Wilkie entered, and in the expressionless voice of those who are without hope, she asked: “What do you wish of me?”

As usual, when the time came to carry out his happiest conceptions, his courage failed him. “I came to talk about our affairs, you know,” he replied, “and I find you moving.”

“I am not moving.”

“Nonsense! you can’t make me believe that! What’s the meaning of these carts in the courtyard?”

“They are here to convey all the furniture in the house to the auction-rooms.”

Wilkie was struck dumb for a moment, but eventually recovering himself a little, he exclaimed: “What! you are going to sell everything?”

“Yes.”

“Astonishing, upon my honor! But afterward?”

“I shall leave Paris.”

“Bah! and where are you going?”

With a gesture of utter indifference, she gently replied: “I don’t know; I shall go where no one will know me, and where it will be possible for me to hide my shame.”

A terrible disquietude seized hold of Wilkie. This sudden change of residence, this departure which so strongly resembled flight, this cold greeting when he expected passionate reproaches, seemed to indicate that Madame d’Argeles’s resolution would successfully resist any amount of entreaty on his part. “The devil,” he remarked, “I don’t think this at all pleasant! What is to become of me? How am I to obtain possession of the Count de Chalusse’s estate? That’s what I am after! It’s rightfully mine, and I’m determined to have it, as I told you once before. And when I’ve once taken anything into my head——”

He paused, for he could no longer face the scornful glances that Madame d’Argeles was giving him. “Don’t be alarmed,” she replied bitterly, “I shall leave you the means of asserting your right to my parents’ estate.”

“Ah—so——”

“Your threats obliged me to decide contrary to my own wishes. I felt that no amount of slander or disgrace would daunt you.”

“Of course not, when so many millions are at stake.”

“I reflected, and I saw that nothing would arrest you upon your downward path except a large fortune. If you were poor and compelled to earn your daily bread—a task which you are probably incapable of performing—who can tell what depths of degradation you might descend to? With your instincts and your vices, who knows what crime you wouldn’t commit to obtain money? It wouldn’t be long before you were in the dock, and I should hear of you only through your disgrace. But, on the other hand, if you were rich, you would probably lead an honest life, like many others, who, wanting for nothing, are not tempted to do wrong, who, in fact, show virtue in which there is nothing worthy of praise. For real virtue implies temptation—a struggle and victory.”

Although he did not understand these remarks very well, M. Wilkie evinced a desire to offer some objections; but Madame d’Argeles had already resumed: “So I went to my notary this morning. I told him everything; and by this time my renunciation of my rights to the estate of the Count de Chalusse is already recorded.”

“What! your renunciation. Oh! no.”

“Allow me to finish since you don’t understand me. As soon as I renounce the inheritance it becomes yours.”

“Truly?”

“I have no wish to deceive you. I only desire that the name of Lia d’Argeles should not be mentioned. I will give you the necessary proofs to establish your identity; my marriage contract and your certificate of birth.”

It was joy that made M. Wilkie speechless now. “And when will you give me these documents?” he faltered, after a short pause.

“You shall have them before you leave this house; but first of all I must talk with you.”