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Updated: May 8, 2025
As the duchess poured out her questions, we passed through the gate; the ladies sat down on a stone bench just inside, and I, standing, told my story. The duchess was amused to hear of old Jean's chase of her; but she showed no astonishment till I told her that Marie Delhasse was at the hotel in Avranches, and had declined to go further on her journey to-day. "At the hotel?
Fortunately I had a small sum of money in my pocket, and I felt sure that Bontet's devotion to the duke would not be proof against an adequate bribe: perhaps he would be able to assist me in eluding the vigilance of Madame Delhasse and obtaining speech with her daughter.
Life, marriage, death so he had faced them all, with scorn and weariness and acquiescence all, save that one passion which bore him beyond himself. The duchess spread the handkerchief again over the dead man's face, and rose to her feet. And she looked across the dead body of the duke at Marie Delhasse.
"You will regret it if you don't start with me;" so said Gustave de Berensac. The present was one of the moments in which I heartily agreed with his prescient prophecy. Human nature is a poor thing. To speak candidly, I cannot recollect that, amid my own selfish perplexities, I spared more than one brief moment to gladness that Marie Delhasse had eluded the pursuit of the Duke of Saint-Maclou.
Then I lay back in my chair, regretting, I recollect, that, as my luggage was left at Avranches, I had not a clean shirt to fight in; and then, becoming drowsy, I began to stare idly along the road in front of the window, rehearsing the events of the last few days in my mind, but coming back to Marie Delhasse. So an hour passed away.
Delhasse. Her face curled in cunning wrinkles. She seemed to be about to speak, but then she shut her lips with a snap, and suspicion betrayed itself again in her eyes. She had a secret a fresh secret I could have sworn, and in her triumph she had come near to saying something that might have cast light on it. "By the way," I said, "your daughter did not expect my coming."
"What is to be ready at six?" I asked. "Some refreshments for Mme. Delhasse," he answered readily. "You order refreshments from the stable?" "I was shouting to the scullery: the door is, as you will perceive, sir, there to the left." Now I knew that this was a lie, and I might very likely have said as much, had not the Duke of Saint-Maclou at this moment come into the room.
"He gave it," I answered, "to the girl's mother, and she, I fear, has made off with it;" and I told the duchess how Mme. Delhasse had laid her plot. The duchess heard me in silence, but at the end she remarked: "It does not matter. I would never have worn the thing again; but it was a pretty plot between them." "The duke had no thought," I began, "but that "
"My wife and Mlle. Delhasse! Truly you are a favorite!" "Honest men happen to be scarce in this neighborhood," said I. I was becoming rather angry. "If you are one, I hope to be able to make them scarcer by one more," said the duke. "Well, we needn't wrangle over it any more," said I; and I sat down on the lid of a chest that stood by the hearth.
Delhasse chose to vanish without a word of civil farewell. Let them go their ways I did not know which of them annoyed me more. Notwithstanding the letter, notwithstanding the disappearance, my scheme must be carried out. And then for home! But the conclusion came glum and displeasing. The scheme was very simple. I intended to spend the hours of the night in an excursion to the duke's house.
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