Her brow was furrowed with a faint frown of troubled doubt.
“Ah, you were there. … I guessed as much. … The brutes! How they did make me suffer! … And you heard their hateful accusations?” she said slowly and thoughtfully.
“I heard a lot of stupid things,” he exclaimed. “And I saw a band of fanatics who hate you as they hate everything that is beautiful. But all that was imbecile and silly. Don’t let’s think any more about it. For my part, I only wish to remember the delightful miracles which spring up before your feet like flowers. I wish to believe in your everlasting youth. I wish to believe that you would not have died if I had not rescued you. I wish to believe that my love is supernatural and that it was by enchantment that you issued just now from the trunk of a yew.”
She shook her head gently, serene again.
“No: to visit the Château de Gueure I had already passed through that ancient door, the key of which was in the lock; and knowing that they were going to make a great search this morning I was on the watch,” she said. “I saw them hunting you from the gate of that garden. You were coming to it. I slipped back and waited.”
“A miracle, I tell you!” he declared. “And here is another. For weeks and months, perhaps for longer, they have searched in that park for a candlestick with seven branches. And to find it in a few minutes in the midst of all that crowd and under the very eyes of our opponents, it was only necessary for me to wish to please you.”
She started and stared at him with amazed eyes: “What? What are you talking about? … You’ve found it?” she cried.
“The candlestick itself: no—only one of its seven branches. Here it is.”
She almost snatched the bronze metal branch from him and examined it almost feverishly. It was round, fairly strong, slightly bent, and the metal of it was hidden by a thick layer of verdigris. One of its ends, a little blackened, had let into one of its faces a large violet stone, rounded en cabochon.
“Yes,” she murmured, “yes: there is no possible doubt about it. The branch has been sawed off level with the main stem. You’ve no idea how grateful I am to you!”
In a few picturesque sentences he gave her an account of his exploit. She could not get over her astonishment.
“But what gave you the idea? Why that inspiration to demolish the ninth pillar rather than another? Was it mere chance?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he declared. “It was a certainty. Eleven out of the twelve pillars had been built before the end of the seventeenth century—the ninth, later.”
“How did you know?” she asked quickly.
“Because the bricks of the eleven others are of a size that has not been in use for the last two hundred years, while the bricks of number nine are those which are in use today. Therefore number nine was demolished and then rebuilt. Why, if not to hide this branch of the candlestick?”
She was silent for a good minute. Then she said slowly:
“It’s extraordinary. … I should never have believed it possible to succeed. … And so quickly! There, where we had all failed. … Yes: it really was a miracle.”
“Love’s miracle,” said Ralph.
The carriage sped along with astonishing rapidity, keeping to cross-country lanes, it avoided the passage through villages. Up hill and down dale the ardor of those two little thin horses never flagged. On either side the country passed like images in a dream.
“Was Beaumagnan there?” asked the Countess.
“Luckily for him he was not,” said Ralph with a darkling air.
“Why luckily?”
“If he had been, I should have strangled him,” said Ralph between his teeth. “I hate the gloomy dog.”
“Not so much as I do,” she said bitterly.
“But you haven’t always hated him,” said he unable to hide his jealousy.
“Lies and calumnies,” said Josephine Balsamo coldly, without raising her voice. “Beaumagnan is an impostor, an unbalanced creature, full of morbid pride; and it is because I rejected his love that he desired my death. That I said the other day; and he did not contradict me. … He could not contradict me.”
“But what joyful words!” exclaimed Ralph. “Then you never loved him? What a weight off my spirits! But, after all, the thing was impossible! Josephine Balsamo to fall in love with a Beaumagnan!”
He laughed aloud in his joy.
“But listen, I do not wish to call you that any longer,” he went on. “Josephine is not a pretty name. Let me call you Josine. May I? That’s it, I will call you Josine, as Napoleon and your mother Josephine Beauharnais called you Josine. That’s settled, isn’t it? You are Josine … my Josine.”
“Respect first, please,” she said smiling at his childishness. “I am not your Josine.”
“Respect! But I’m overflowing with respect. What! We were shut up together. … You were entirely defenseless. … And I remained on my knees before you as before an idol. And I’m full of fear! I’m trembling! If you were to give me your hand to kiss I should not dare to do it!”
VI
Detectives and Policemen
The journey was one long protestation of love. Perhaps the Countess of Cagliostro was right not to put Ralph to the test by holding out her hand for him to kiss. But in truth, though he had sworn an oath to win that charming young woman and was resolved to do so, he felt for her a respect which left him just enough courage to ply her with amorous words, and no more.
Did she hear him? For
