“And after that?”
“The Count and his huntsman returned to the Castle, leaving the Baron lying helpless; when the latter came to, he made signs to some passing peasants, who put him on a litter, and bore him away, with the intention of taking him to Villers-Cotterets; but he was in such pain, that they could not carry him farther than Puiseux; there they laid him on the bed where you found him, and on which he breathed his last a second after the half hour after nine in the evening.”
The Countess rose, and without speaking, went to her jewel-case and took out the pearls she had worn two nights before. She handed them to Thibault.
“What are they for?” he asked.
“Take them,” said the Countess, “they are worth fifty thousand livres.”
“Are you still anxious for revenge?”
“Yes,” replied the Countess.
“Revenge will cost more than that.”
“How much will it cost?”
“Wait for me tomorrow night,” said Thibault, “and I will tell you.”
“Where shall I await you?” asked the Countess.
“Here,” said Thibault, with the leer of a wild animal.
“I will await you here,” said the Countess.
“Till tomorrow then.”
“Till tomorrow.”
Thibault went out. The Countess went and replaced the pearls in her dressing case; lifted up a false bottom, and drew from underneath it a small bottle containing an opal-coloured liquid, and a little dagger with a jewelled handle and case, and a blade inlaid with gold. She hid both beneath her pillow, knelt at her prie-dieu, and, her prayer finished, threw herself dressed on to her bed. …
XX
True to Tryst
On quitting the Countess’s room, Thibault had left the castle by the way which he had described to her, and soon found himself safe beyond its walls and outside the park. And now, for the first time in his life, Thibault had really nowhere to go. His hut was burnt, he was without a friend, and like Cain, he was a wanderer on the face of the earth. He turned to the unfailing shelter of the forest, and there made his way to the lower end of Chavigny; as the day was breaking he came across a solitary house, and asked if he could buy some bread. The woman belonging to it, her husband being away, gave him some, but refused to receive payment for it; his appearance frightened her. Having now food sufficient for the day, Thibault returned to the forest, with the intention of spending his time till evening in a part which he knew between Fleury and Longpont, where the trees were especially thick and tall. As he was looking for a resting place behind a rock, his eye was attracted by a shining object lying at the bottom of a slope, and his curiosity led him to climb down and see what it was. The shining object was the silver badge belonging to a huntsman’s shoulder-belt; the shoulder-belt was slung round the neck of a dead body, or rather of a skeleton, for the flesh had been entirely eaten off the bones, which were as clean as if prepared for an anatomist’s study or a painter’s studio. The skeleton looked as if it had only lain there since the preceding night.
“Ah! ah!” said Thibault, “this is probably the work of my friends, the wolves; they evidently profited by the permission which I gave them.”
Curious to know if possible who the victim was, he examined it more closely; his curiosity was soon satisfied, for the badge, which the wolves had no doubt rejected as less easily digestible than the rest, was lying on the chest of the skeleton, like a ticket on a bale of goods.
J. B. Lestocq,
Head Keeper to the Comte de Mont-Gobert.
“Well done!” laughed Thibault, “here is one at least who did not live long to enjoy the result of his murderous act.”
Then, contracting his brow, he muttered to himself, in a low voice, and this time without laughing:
“Is there perhaps, after all, what people call a Providence?”
Lestocq’s death was not difficult to account for. He had probably been executing some order for his master that night, and on the road between Mont-Gobert and Longpont, had been attacked by wolves. He had defended himself with the same knife with which he had wounded the Baron, for Thibault found the knife a few paces off, at a spot where the ground showed traces of a severe struggle; at last, being disarmed, the ferocious beasts had dragged him into the hollow, and there devoured him.
Thibault was becoming so indifferent to everything that he felt neither pleasure nor regret, neither satisfaction nor remorse, at Lestocq’s death; all he thought was, that it simplified matters for the Countess, as she would now only have her husband upon whom she need revenge herself. Then he went and found a place where the rocks afforded him the best shelter from the wind, and prepared to spend his day there in peace. Towards midday, he heard the horn of the Lord of Vez, and the cry of his hounds; the mighty huntsman was after game, but the chase did not pass near enough to Thibault to disturb him.
At last the night came. At nine o’clock Thibault rose and set out for the Castle of Mont-Gobert. He found the breach, followed the path he knew, and came to the little hut where Lisette had been awaiting him on the night when he had come in the guise of Raoul. The poor girl was there this evening, but alarmed and trembling. Thibault wished to carry out the old traditions and tried to kiss her, but she sprang back with visible signs of fear.
“Do not touch me,” she said, “or I shall call out.”
“Oh, indeed! my pretty one,” said Thibault, “you were not so sour-tempered the other day with the Baron Raoul.”
“May be not,” said the girl, “but a great many things have happened since the other day.”
“And many more to happen still,” said Thibault in a lively tone.
“I think,” said
