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Updated: May 11, 2025
The plot failed, but it was none the less real, positive, palpable and those letters are a proof of it. But they shall never be read no not if I am obliged to set fire to the Hotel de Chalusse with my own hand." Now the count's constant terror, the fear with which this woman had inspired him, were explained.
She possessed the distinguishing characteristic of her family in a remarkable degree that proverbial Chalusse obstinacy which Madame Vantrasson had alluded to in her conversation with M. Fortunat. She was silent for a moment, and then, in a firm tone she said: "Still, I will follow your advice in part, baron. This evening I will write to M. Patterson and request him to send for Wilkie.
From the count's bedroom they passed into his study, followed by Mademoiselle Marguerite, Madame Leon, and the servants. By noon every article of furniture in which M. de Chalusse would have been likely to deposit his valuables or a will, had been searched, and nothing, absolutely nothing, had been found.
"During the last two years," she said, "I have had twenty offers; and among them three or four that would have been acceptable to a duchess. I have refused them, in spite of M. Elgin and Mrs. Brian. Only yesterday, a man of twenty-five, a Gordon Chalusse, was here at my feet. I have sent him off like the others, preferring my dear count. And why?"
"I am losing my wits," he thought. "Still more wise counsel," remarked the ruined nobleman ironically. "While you are about it, why don't you advise me to sell my horses and carriages, and establish myself in a garret in the Rue Amelot? Such a course would seem very natural, wouldn't it? and, of course, it would inspire M. de Chalusse with boundless confidence!"
"The Count de Chalusse was stricken with apoplexy this evening, and he is probably dead by this time." M. Fortunat sprang from his chair with a livid face and trembling lips. "Stricken with apoplexy!" he exclaimed in a husky voice. "I am ruined!" Then, fearing Madame Dodelin's curiosity, he seized the lamp and rushed into his office, crying to Chupin: "Follow me."
M. Fortunat was not a little disturbed; and it was with a look of something very like consternation that he glanced at Madame d'Argeles, who had reseated herself and was now sobbing violently, with her face hidden on the arm of her chair. "What prevents her?" he thought. "Why this sudden terror now that her brother is dead? Is she unwilling to confess that she is a Chalusse?
If he is not here now, threatening our safety, it is because I have succeeded in eluding him. He lost all trace of us eighteen years ago. Since then he has been constantly striving to discover us, but in vain. He is still watching, you may be sure of that; and as soon as there is any talk of a law-suit respecting the Chalusse property, you will see him appear, armed with his rights.
Meanwhile, she had resumed speaking: "I was much reduced in circumstances at the end of my resources, indeed when M. de Chalusse a family friend requested me to act as companion to a young girl in whom he was interested Mademoiselle Marguerite.
"But the superior's efforts were wasted, for M. de Chalusse had turned away and had begun talking with some gentlemen near by. For the office was full that morning. Five or six gentlemen, whom I recognized as the directors of the asylum, were standing round the steward in the black skullcap. They were evidently talking about me.
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