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Madame Graslin took his head in both hands and kissed him on the forehead; then, seeing his surprise at so much gratitude, she pressed his hand and said: "Before long you will know the secret of all this. Let us go back to the terrace, for it is late; I am very tired, but I must look my last on that dear plain."
He let the birds in the aviary die for want of care, to avoid the cost of their food and attendance. And he even took advantage of a winter when there was no ice, to give up his icehouse and save the expense of filling it. By 1828 there was not a single article of luxury in the house which he had not in some way got rid of. Parsimony reigned unchecked in the hotel Graslin.
Through the openings made by the rural lanes running down below the terrace to the main street of Montegnac Gerard and Monsieur Bonnet could see the faces of men, women, and children turned toward them; watching more particularly, no doubt, for Madame Graslin. How much of tenderness and gratitude was expressed on those faces! How many benedictions followed Veronique's footsteps!
Champion and Colorat began to wonder at Madame Graslin, whose silence seemed strange to them, and they were greatly astonished to see the shining track of tears upon her cheeks; her eyes were red and full of tears, which were falling drop by drop as she rode along. "Oh, madame," said Colorat, "don't pity him! The lad has had his day.
Monsieur Ruffin, whose eyes were on Madame Graslin as she came toward them, now looked at Madame Sauviat, and was powerfully struck by the aspect of that old head, like that of a Roman matron, petrified with grief and moistened with tears. "Madame, why did you not prevent her from coming out?" said the tutor to the old mother, august and sacred in her silent grief.
But Monsieur Graslin had now begun to tighten his purse-strings, having made the discovery, in spite of the innocent deceptions of his wife and her maid, that the money he paid did not go solely for household expenses and for dress.
The following day an express, sent from Limoges by Monsieur Grossetete to Madame Graslin, brought her the following letter: To Madame Graslin: My dear Child, It was difficult to find horses, but I hope you are satisfied with those I sent you. If you want work or draft horses, you must look elsewhere. In any case, however, I advise you to do your tilling and transportation with oxen.
"Yes, certain," replied Colorat; "it is even said that it was he who killed the traveller by the mail-coach in 1812; but the courier and the postilion, the only witnesses who could have identified him, were dead before he was tried." "Tried for the robbery?" asked Madame Graslin. "Yes, they took everything; amongst it twenty-five thousand francs belonging to the government."
The father and mother Farrabesche are dead, but Catherine's three sisters are married, one in Aubusson, another in Limoges, and a third in Saint-Leonard." "Do you think Farrabesche knows where Catherine Curieux is?" asked Madame Graslin. "If he did know he'd break his parole. Oh! he'd go to her.
The ducal house of Navarreins had offered for sale the forest of Montegnac and the uncultivated lands around it. Graslin had never yet executed the clause in his marriage contract with his wife which obliged him to invest his wife's fortune in lands; up to this time he had preferred to employ the money in his bank, where he had fully doubled it. He now began to speak of this investment.
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