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I am at Richeport, at Madame de Meilhan's house!... This astonishes you, ... so it does me; you don't understand it, ... neither do I. The fact is, that when you can't control events, the best thing to be done is to let events control you.
The accusation ridiculed Meilhan's explanation, dubbing it just another of the schoolmaster's lies. It brought forward a contradictory explanation given by Meilhan to one Thener, a surgeon, whom he knew to be in frequent contact with the son whom the document was intended to deceive.
Suddenly the servant opened the door and said: "The gentleman forgot Madame de Meilhan's letters." At that moment he entered the room and took from the table a packet of letters that the servant had given him when he first came, but which he had forgotten when leaving.
Meilhan's statement was full of discrepancies. He told Castera that he held the note against 2000 francs previously lent to the widow. He now said that he had discounted the note on sight. But the fact was that since Meilhan had come to live in Riguepeu he had been without resources. He had stripped himself in order to establish his son in a pharmacy at Vic-Fezensac.
And, indeed, one would be deceived by her; she seems more at her ease here than at Madame Taverneau's, and what would be a restraint on a woman of her class, on the contrary gives her more liberty. Her manners have become charming, and I often ask myself if she is not the daughter of one of Madame de Meilhan's friends.
I had crossed a large field that separates the property of the florist from Madame de Meilhan's, and entered the park by a little gate; a few steps off a fountain rippled among the rocks a basin surrounded by shells received its waters. This basin had originally been pretentiously ornamented, but time and vegetation had greatly improved these efforts of bad taste.
I was compelled, in spite of myself, to look attractive, on account of having to put on a lovely dress that the treacherous Blanchard had spread out on the bed with the determination that I should wear it; protesting that it was a blessed thing she had brought this one, as there was not another one fit for me to appear in before Mad. de Meilhan's guests.
I at last remembered that I had only been Madame de Meilhan's guest a few hours, and that my abrupt disappearance must appear, to say the least, strange to her. On the other hand, Edgar, whom I had treacherously abandoned in the greatest danger, would have serious grounds of complaint against me.
The Mayor did not know actually if the deed was in the writing of Mme Lacoste. He did not know her fist. But he could be certain that it was not in Meilhan's hand. This deed was later shown by Meilhan to the cure of Riguepeu, who saw at least that the deed was not in Meilhan's writing.
Meilhan informed Thener that he had fabricated the deed, and had shown it round, in order to inspire such confidence in him as would secure him refuge when he had to give up schoolmastering. These contradictory and unbelievable explanations were the fruit of Meilhan's efforts to cover the fact that the annuity was the price paid him by the Widow Lacoste for his part in the murder of her husband.
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