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"Who is here?" he demanded. "I am," answered Jacqueline. "I thought I heard Lacroix," said Leroux thickly. "I have not seen M. Lacroix to-day," Jacqueline returned. Leroux stamped heavily about the room and then sat down. I heard the legs of his chair scratch the wooden floor as he drew it up to the table. "Maudit!" he burst out explosively. "Where is d'Epernay? I am tired of waiting for him!"
"You may leave us, Mme. d'Epernay," he said to Jacqueline. "No doubt your absence will spare your feelings, for we are going to be frank in our speech." "I thank you for your consideration, M. Leroux," replied Jacqueline, and walked quietly out of the room. It occurred to me that Leroux could hardly be more frank than he had been, but I sat down and waited.
There I learned that Mme. d'Epernay had fled on the night of her marriage, and that her husband was in pursuit of her. Again it was told me that she was living at the Château Frontenac with another man. It was not for me to question whether she loved her husband, but to do my duty. "I appealed to you. You refused to listen to my appeal. You threatened me, monsieur. And you denied my priesthood.
All finish now," he answered. Simon drew back a pace and watched him, and I heard him breathing like one who has run a race. "You come here one, two year ago," Pierre continued. "You eat up home of M. Duchaine, my master. Old M. Duchaine my master, too. I belong here. You eat up all, come back, eat up some more. Then you sell Mlle. Jacqueline to Louis d'Epernay. You made her run 'way to New York.
After my father had turned M. Louis d'Epernay out of his home, whither he had come to beg money to pay his gambling debts, you brought him back. You made my father take him in. He wanted to marry me. But I refused, because I had no love for him. But you insisted I should marry him, because he had gained you the entrance to the seigniory and helped you to acquire your power over my father.
And the seigniory is already his, and I am waiting for him to return and sell me the ground rights for twenty-five thousand more, and if I know Louis d'Epernay he will not wait very long to get his fingers round it." Jacqueline stood watching him with supreme indifference. The man's coarse gibes had flown past her without wounding her, as they would have hurt a lower nature.
My only aim is to take my father away from here, from you and M. d'Epernay, and let you wrangle over your spoil. There are more than four-legged wolves, M. Leroux; there are human ones, and, like the others, when food is scarce they prey upon each other." "I like your spirit!" exclaimed Simon, staring at her with frank admiration. And Jacqueline's head drooped then.
I guess that man, d'Epernay, was lying to me. He wanted to get a cash advance, and I got a little suspicious of him just about then. However, I am ready to look at your gold mine if you want me to." "You'll have to do some blasting then," I said, nettled. "It's just about two hundred feet below the ground." "Never mind," said Tom. "Lumber is better than gold.
You are in dreadful danger. Come back!" "Never mind the danger, madame," I answered, and I saw her flinch at the word and look at me in dazed bewilderment. "Never mind my danger." "It is for your own sake, monsieur," she said more gently. "No, Mme. d'Epernay," I answered; and she winced again, as though I had struck her across the face.
At last he stopped; he seemed to have made up his mind. "I understand now," he said, nodding his head. "So you are the man who took this woman to the Merrimac. And then to your home, and Louis d'Epernay followed you there, and, naturally, you killed him. Well, it is intelligible. You were not acting for Carson after all, but were infatuated with this woman.
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