"Well, you are a very intelligent woman; you have shown great discretion,"said Newman."I shall value your services as housekeeper extremely."They had begun to descend the hill, and Mrs.Bread said nothing until they reached the foot.Newman strolled lightly beside her;his head was thrown back and he was gazing at all the stars;he seemed to himself to be riding his vengeance along the Milky Way.
"So you are serious, sir, about that?" said Mrs.Bread, softly.
"About your living with me? Why of course I will take care of you to the end of your days.You can't live with those people any longer.
And you oughtn't to, you know, after this.You give me the paper, and you move away.""It seems very flighty in me to be taking a new place at this time of life,"observed Mrs.Bread, lugubriously."But if you are going to turn the house upside down, I would rather be out of it.""Oh," said Newman, in the cheerful tone of a man who feels rich in alternatives."I don't think I shall bring in the constables, if that's what you mean.Whatever Madame de Bellegarde did, I am afraid the law can't take hold of it.But I am glad of that;it leaves it altogether to me!"
"You are a mighty bold gentleman, sir," murmured Mrs.Bread, looking at him round the edge of her great bonnet.
He walked with her back to the chateau; the curfew had tolled for the laborious villagers of Fleurieres, and the street was unlighted and empty.
She promised him that he should have the marquis's manuscript in half an hour.Mrs.Bread choosing not to go in by the great gate, they passed round by a winding lane to a door in the wall of the park, of which she had the key, and which would enable her to enter the chateau from behind.
Newman arranged with her that he should await outside the wall her return with the coveted document.
She went in, and his half hour in the dusky lane seemed very long.
But he had plenty to think about.At last the door in the wall opened and Mrs.Bread stood there, with one hand on the latch and the other holding out a scrap of white paper, folded small.
In a moment he was master of it, and it had passed into his waistcoat pocket.
"Come and see me in Paris," he said; "we are to settle your future, you know; and I will translate poor M.de Bellegarde's French to you."Never had he felt so grateful as at this moment for M.Nioche's instructions.
Mrs.Bread's dull eyes had followed the disappearance of the paper, and she gave a heavy sigh."Well, you have done what you would with me, sir, and I suppose you will do it again.You MUST take care of me now.
You are a terribly positive gentleman."
"Just now," said Newman, "I'm a terribly impatient gentleman!"And he bade her good-night and walked rapidly back to the inn.
He ordered his vehicle to be prepared for his return to Poitiers, and then he shut the door of the common salle and strode toward the solitary lamp on the chimney-piece.He pulled out the paper and quickly unfolded it.It was covered with pencil-marks, which at first, in the feeble light, seemed indistinct.
But Newman's fierce curiosity forced a meaning from the tremulous signs.
The English of them was as follows:--
"My wife has tried to kill me, and she has done it; I am dying, dying horribly.It is to marry my dear daughter to M.de Cintre.
With all my soul I protest,--I forbid it.I am not insane,--ask the doctors, ask Mrs.B----.It was alone with me here, to-night;she attacked me and put me to death.It is murder, if murder ever was.
Ask the doctors.
"HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE"
