The Three Eyes Part 32

I in my turn was bewildered:

"What, it was you who saved him? You succeeded in landing, in finding Velmot in the dark, in hitting him just as he was turning on me? It was you who stopped him? It was you who set Ma.s.signac free?"

I took her little hand and kissed it with emotion. The dear girl! She also had done all she could to protect Noel Dorgeroux's secret; and with what courage, with what undaunted pluck, risking death twenty times over and not recoiling, at the great hour of danger, from the terrible act of taking life!

"You must tell me all this in detail, Berangere. Go on with your story. Where did you take your father to?"

"To the river bank; and from there, in a market-gardener's cart, to the Chateau de Pre-Bony, where I nursed him."

"And Velmot?"

She gave a shudder:

"I did not see him again for days and days, not until this morning. I was sitting on the bench by the ruins, reading. Suddenly he stood before me. I tried to run away. He prevented me and said, 'Your father is dead. I have come to you from him. Listen!' I distrusted him but he went on to say, 'I swear I come from him; and, to prove it, he told me that you knew the formula. He confided it to you during his illness.'

This was true. While I was nursing my father, in this very lodge, he said to me one day, 'I can't tell what may happen, Berangere. It is possible that I shall destroy the screen at Meudon, out of revenge. It will be a mistake. In any case, I want to undo that act of madness beforehand.' He then made me learn the formula by heart. And this was a thing which no one except my father and myself could know, because I was alone with him and kept the secret. Velmot, consequently, was speaking the truth."

"What did you say?"

"I just said, 'Well?' Velmot said, 'His last wish was that you should give me the formula.' 'Never!' I said. 'You lie! My father made me swear never to reveal it to any one, whatever happened, except to one person.' He shrugged his shoulders: 'Victorien Beaugrand, I suppose?'

'Yes.' 'Victorien Beaugrand heard Ma.s.signac's last words. And he agrees with me, or at least is on the point of doing so.' 'I refuse to believe it!' 'Ask him for yourself. He's up there, in the ruins . . .'"

"I, in the ruins?"

"That's what he said: 'In the ruins, fastened to the foot of a tree.

His life depends on you. I offer it to you in exchange for the formula. If not, he's a dead man.' I did not suspect the trap which he was laying for me. I ran towards the ruins as fast as I could. This was what Velmot wanted. The ruins was a deserted spot, which gave him the chance to attack me. He took it at once, without even trying to conceal his falsehood. 'Caught, baby!' he cried, throwing me to the ground. 'Oh, I knew you'd be sure to come! Only think, it's your lover, it's the man you love! For you do love him, don't you?'

Evidently his only object was to obtain the secret from me by threats and blows. But what happened was that his rage against you and my hatred and loathing for him made him lose his head. First of all he wanted his revenge. He had me in his arms. Oh, the villain!"

She once more hid her face in her hands. She was very feverish; and I heard her stammering:

"The villain! . . . I don't know how I got away from him. I was worn out. For all that, I managed to give him a savage bite and to release myself. He ran after me, brandishing his revolver; but just as he caught me up, he fell and let go of it. I picked it up at once. When he came after me again, I fired. . . ."

She was silent. The painful story had exhausted her. Her face retained an expression of bewilderment and fright.

"My poor Berangere," I said, "I have done you a great wrong. I have often, far too often, accused you in my heart, without guessing what a wonderful, plucky creature you were."

"You could not be expected to understand me."

"Why not?"

She murmured sadly:

"I am Ma.s.signac's daughter."

"No more of that!" I cried. "You are the one who always sacrificed herself and who always took the risk. And you are also the girl I love, Berangere, the girl who gave me all her life and all her soul in a kiss. Remember Berangere . . . the other day in the Yard, when I found you again and when the sight of all those visions of love threw you in my arms. . . ."

"I have forgotten nothing," she said, "and I never shall forget."

"Then you consent?"

Once again she repeated:

"I am Ma.s.signac's daughter."

"Is that the only reason why you refuse me?"

"Can you doubt it?"

I allowed a moment to pa.s.s and said:

"So that, if your fate had willed it that you were not Ma.s.signac's daughter, you would have consented to be my wife?"

"Yes," she said, gravely.

The hour had come to speak; and how happy was I to be able to do so. I repeated my sentence:

"If fate had willed that you were not Ma.s.signac's daughter. . . .

Berangere, did it never occur to you to wonder why there was so little affection between Ma.s.signac and you, why, on the contrary, there was so much indifference? When you were a child, the thought of going back to him and living with him used to upset you terribly. All your life was wrapped up in the Yard. All your love went out to Noel Dorgeroux. Don't you think, when all is said, that we are ent.i.tled to interpret your girlish feelings and instincts in a special sense?"

She looked at me in surprise:

"I don't understand," she said.

"You don't understand, because you have never thought about these things. For instance, is it natural that the death of the man whom you called your father should give you such an impression of deliverance and relief?"

She seemed dazed:

"Why do you say, the man whom I called my father?"

"Well," I replied, smiling, "I have never seen your birth-certificate.

And, as I have no proof of a fact which seems to me improbable . . ."

"But," she said, in a changed voice, "you have not the least proof either that it is not so. . . ."

"Perhaps I have," I answered.

"Oh," said Berangere, "it would be too terrible to say that and not to let me learn the truth at once!"

"Do you know Ma.s.signac's writing?"

I took a letter from my pocket and handed it to her:

"Read this, my darling. It is a letter which Ma.s.signac wrote to me and which he handed to me as he lay dying. I read only the first few words to begin with and at once went off in search of you. Read it, Berangere, and have no doubts: it is the evidence of a dead man."

She took the letter and read aloud:

"Berangere knows the formula and must not communicate it to any one except you alone, Victorien. You will marry her, will you not? She is not my daughter, but Noel Dorgeroux's. She was born five months after my marriage, as you can confirm by consulting the public records. Forgive me, both of you, and pray for me."

A long pause followed. Berangere was weeping tears of joy. A radiant light was being thrown on her whole life. The awful weight that had bowed her down in shame and despair no longer bore upon her shoulders.