“Wait a moment,” replied Savinien, quite bewildered by this revelation.
“Ursule, my child,” said he, going back to the drawing-room, “the cause of all your misery has lived to feel horror of his work; he repents, and would be glad to ask your pardon in the presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all shall be forgotten.”
“What! Goupil?” exclaimed the curé, the Justice, and the doctor in a breath.
“Keep his secret,” said Ursule, putting a finger on her lips.
Goupil heard her words, saw the gesture, and it touched him.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, with feeling, “I wish that all Nemours might hear me confess to you that a fatal passion turned my head, and suggested to me a series of crimes deserving the blame of all honest folks. What I have said I will repeat everywhere, deploring the evil result of my practical jokes, though they may, in fact, have hurried on your happiness,” he added, a little maliciously, as he rose, “since I see Madame de Portenduère here.”
“That is right, Goupil,” said the curé; “mademoiselle forgives you. But do not forget that you have been very near committing murder.”
“Monsieur Bongrand,” Goupil went on, turning to the Justice, “I am going this evening to try to bargain with Lecoeur for his place as summonsing officer, I hope this confession will have done me no injury in your mind, and that you will support my candidature among the superior lawyers, and to the ministry.”
The Justice gravely bowed, and Goupil went off to treat for the better of the two appointments in Nemours. The others remained with Ursule, and endeavored that evening to restore calmness and peace in her mind, which was already relieved by the satisfaction given her by the clerk.
“All Nemours shall know it,” said Bongrand.
“You see, my child, God was not against you,” said the curé.
Minoret returned late from le Rouvre, and dined late. At about nine in the evening he was sitting in his Chinese pavilion digesting his dinner, his wife by his side, and laying plans with her for Désiré’s future prospects. Désiré had quite settled down since he had held an appointment; he worked steadily, and had a good chance, it was said, of succeeding the public prosecutor of the district of Fontainebleau, who was to be promoted to Melun. They must find him a wife now, a girl wanting money, but belonging to some old and noble family; then he might rise to a judgeship in Paris. Possibly they might be able to get him elected député for Fontainebleau, where Zélie thought they would do well to settle for the winter, after spending the summer at le Rouvre. Minoret, very much pleased with himself for having arranged everything for the best, had ceased to think of Ursule at the very moment when the drama he had so clumsily begun had become so fatally complicated.
“Monsieur de Portenduère would like to speak to you,” said Cabirolle, coming in.
“Bring him here,” said Zélie.
The shades of dusk prevented Madame Minoret’s seeing her husband suddenly turn pale; he shuddered as he heard Savinien’s boots creak on the inlaid flooring of the passage, where the doctor’s books had formerly lined the wall. A vague presentiment ran chill through the spoiler’s veins.
Savinien came in. He stood still, keeping his hat on, his stick in his hand, his arms folded—motionless, face to face with the couple.
“I have come to know, Monsieur and Madame Minoret, the reasons which have led you to torture in the most infamous manner the young girl who is, to the knowledge of all Nemours, my future wife; why you have tried to brand her honor; why you wish her dead; and why you have abandoned her to the insults of such a creature as Goupil.—Answer.”
“What a queer notion. Monsieur Savinien,” said Zélie, “to come and ask us our reasons for a thing which is to us inexplicable! I do not care for Ursule one snap. Since Uncle Minoret’s death I have no more given her a thought than to an old smock! I have never breathed her name to Goupil—and a queer rascal he is, whom I would not trust with the interests of my dog.—Well, Minoret, why don’t you answer? Are you going to let monsieur attack you and accuse you of rascality that is beneath you? As if a man who has forty-eight thousand francs a year in landed estate round a château fit for a prince would demean himself to such folly! Wake up, man—sitting there like a dummy!”
“I don’t know what monsieur would be at,” said Minoret at last, in his thin voice, of which the clear accents betrayed its trembling. “What reason could I have for persecuting the girl? I may have said to Goupil that it vexed me to know that she was in Nemours; my son Désiré had taken a fancy to her, and I would not have him marry her, that was all.”
“Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret.”
There was a moment’s silence—a terrible moment, while these three persons watched each other. Zélie had detected a nervous movement in the
