The Son of Monte-Cristo Volume II Part 33

"Oh, the door opens now, and Jacques enters! Welcome, my dear child. How handsome you have become. Thank G.o.d, I have you again!"

"Has she really found Jacques again?" asked Labarre, tremblingly, and turning to Caillette. "Is he living?"

"Yes, he is the same person as Fanfaro."

"G.o.d be praised. And Louison?"

"Louison has been abducted and--"

"Abducted? By whom?"

"By the Vicomte of Talizac."

"By Talizac? O my G.o.d!" stammered Labarre, in horror.

Louise, too, had heard the name, and raising herself with difficulty, she whispered:

"Talizac? He must know it! Jacques--the box, O G.o.d! where is the box?"

How did these two women get to Leigoutte?

When Fanfaro went to search for Louison, his mother had remained behind under the protection of Caillette. The day pa.s.sed, night came, but neither Fanfaro, Girdel nor Bobichel returned. The maniac screamed and cried. She wanted to see Jacques, and Caillette could hardly calm her.

Finally long past midnight she fell into a slumber, and Caillette, too, exhausted by the excitement of the last few hours, closed her eyes.

When she awoke it was daylight. She glanced at the maniac's bed.

Merciful Heaven, it was empty!

Trembling with fear, Caillette hurried downstairs and asked the janitress whether she had seen anything of the "Burned Woman." The janitress looked at her in amazement and said she had thought at once when she saw the old crippled woman creeping down the stairs two hours before that all was not right in her head.

"But she cannot walk at all, how could she get out?" groaned Caillette.

"Suppose Fanfaro came now and found that his mother was gone?"

"A milk-wagon stopped in front of the door," said the janitress, "and the driver let the old woman get in. I thought it had been arranged beforehand and was all right."

Caillette wrung her hands and then hurried to the station house and announced the disappearance of the "Burned Woman."

If her father and Bobichel, even Fanfaro, had come, she would have felt at ease. But no one showed himself, and Caillette, who knew that Girdel and Fanfaro were wanted, did not dare to make any inquiries.

She ran about in desperation. The only clew was the milkman, but where could she find him? Caillette pa.s.sed hours of dreadful anxiety, and when a ragpicker told her that he saw a woman who answered her description pa.s.s the Barriere d'Italie on a milk-wagon, she thought him a messenger of G.o.d.

As quick as she could go, she ran to the place designated; a hundred times on the way, she said to herself that the wagon must have gone on; and yet it struck like a clap of thunder when she found it was really so. What now? Caillette asked from house to house; every one had seen the woman, but she had gone in a different direction; and so the poor child wandered onward, right and left, forward and backward, always hoping to discover them. Finally, after she had been thirty-six hours on the way, she found the maniac in a little tavern by the roadside. She was crouching near the threshold, and smiled when she saw Caillette.

"G.o.d be praised! I have found you," cried the young girl, sobbing; and when the hostess, who had been standing in the background, heard these words, she joyfully said:

"I am glad I did not leave the poor woman go; she spoke so funny, I thought at once that she had run away from her family."

"What did she say?" asked Caillette, while the "Burned Woman" clung to her.

"Oh, she asked for bread, and then inquired the way to the Vosges."

"Yes, to the Vosges," said the maniac, hastily.

"But, mother, what should we do in the Vosges?" asked Caillette, in surprise.

"To Leigoutte--Leigoutte," repeated the maniac, urgently.

"Leigoutte--that is Fanfaro's home!" exclaimed the young girl, hastily.

"Not Fanfaro--Jacques," corrected the old woman.

"But what should we do in Leigoutte, mother?"

"The box--Jacques--Talizac--the papers," the woman replied.

And so we find Caillette and her patient, after weary wanderings, in Leigoutte. The young girl had sold, on the way, a gold cross, the only jewel she possessed, to pay the expenses of the journey. Charitable peasants had given the women short rides at times; kind-hearted farmers'

wives had offered them food and drink, or else a night's lodging. Yet Caillette thanked G.o.d when she arrived at Leigoutte. What would happen now, she did not know. Nothing could induce the maniac to return, and the young girl thought it best not to oppose her wish. Little by little, she began to suspect herself that the journey might be important for Fanfaro; who could tell what thoughts were agitating the mad woman's brain; and, perhaps, the unexpected recovery of her son might have awakened recollections of the past.

"I must speak to old Laison," said the "Burned Woman," suddenly; "he must help me."

She arose, shoved Caillette and Pierre aside, and hobbled toward the back door. Opening it, she reached the open field, and without looking around, she walked on and on. Pierre and Caillette followed her unnoticed. She had now reached the spot on which the old farmhouse of Laison stood, and, looking timidly around her, she turned to the right.

Suddenly she uttered a loud scream, and when Caillette and Pierre hurried in affright to her, they found the maniac deathly pale, leaning against a hollow tree, while her crippled fingers held a box, which she had apparently dug out of the earth; for close to the hollow tree was a deep hole, and the box was covered with dirt and earth.

"There it is!" she cried to Pierre, and from the eyes in which madness had shone before, reason now sparkled. "Jacques is not my son, but Vicomte de Talizac, and Louison is the Marquise of Fougereuse--here are the proofs."

She clutched a number of papers from the box and held them triumphantly uplifted; but then nature demanded her right, and, exhausted by the great excitement, she sank senseless into Caillette's arms.

CHAPTER XXI

EXCITED

The street-singer was resting in the beautiful boudoir of the young countess, Irene de Salves. The poor child lay under lace covers, and Irene's tenderness and attachment had banished her melancholy.

After the terrible scene in the Fougereuse mansion, the young countess, with the help of Arthur, brought Louison to a carriage, and, to Madame Ursula's horror, she gave the young girl her own room and bed. For Fanfaro's sister nothing could be good enough, and the young countess made Louison as comfortable as possible.

After the young girl had rested a few hours, she felt much stronger, but with this feeling the recollection of what she had gone through returned, and in a trembling voice she asked Irene:

"Who saved me?"

"Don't you know?" asked the countess, blushing. "It was Fanfaro."

"Fanfaro? Who is that?"