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Updated: July 4, 2025
"M. Duchaine! Come with me!" I cried. "He has a gallows ready for you back in that tunnel!" It was a pitiful scheme, and yet for the life of me I could think of no other way to win him. And, as it happened, the word associated itself in the listener's mind as much with the speaker as with the man spoken of, for I saw Duchaine start violently and cling to the icy wall.
It had slipped from his lips unconsciously, but it gave me reason to believe that the château was near by. Father Antoine sat down upon the chair beside me. "M. Duchaine has been a recluse for many years," he said, "and of late his mind has become affected.
"I am going back," I answered, still fumbling for the holt Duchaine had drawn. "No! We are safe inside. It is a secret room. My father made it in the first days of his sojourn here in case he was pursued, and none but Pierre and he know the secret. Ah, come, monsieur come!" She clung to me desperately, and there was an intensity of entreaty in her voice. I hesitated.
But the projecting ledge of rock effectively screened Leroux and Duchaine as well, for in my passion I had been firing blindly, and but for that I should undoubtedly have killed Jacqueline's father. The mocking laughter of Leroux came back to me in faint and far-away reply. I saw the explanation of the man's presence now.
"Pierre Caribou," I said, "wouldn't you like to have the old days back when M. Duchaine was master and there was no Simon Leroux?" He did not answer me, but I saw his face-muscles twitch. Then he pulled a pipe from his pocket and stuffed it with a handful of coarse tobacco. He handed it to me and struck a match and held it to the bowl.
"The seigniory of M. Charles Duchaine?" he answered, looking curiously at me. "You are evidently a stranger, monsieur, or you would have heard of it, especially now when people are saying that " He checked himself at this point. "It is the oldest of the seigniories," he continued.
Here he looked mockingly at my fur coat, which hardly bore out this presumption of my indigence. "Eh bien, to continue. Let us suppose that the affairs of M. Charles Duchaine have interested a gentleman of business and politics whom we will call M. Leroux just for the sake of giving him a name, you understand," he resumed, looking at me maliciously.
Did you kill him, Simon?" "No, I didn't kill him," Simon sneered. "Wake up a little more, Duchaine. Do you know what happens now he is dead?" "I expect you to get some more money, Simon," answered the old man with an ingenuousness that made the reply more stinging than any intended irony. Leroux burst into a mirthless laugh. "You are quite right, Duchaine," he answered.
But there had been a sinister smoothness in Leroux's latest mood. I did not trust the man, for all his bluntness. I suspected something, and I did not intend to relax my guard. A gentle touch upon the elbow made me leap round in my chair. Old Charles Duchaine had ceased to play and was watching me out of his mild eyes. His fingers stroked my coat-sleeve timidly, as though he were afraid of me.
Behind it the sheer precipice, up which not even a bird could walk; the impassable lake before it, and the torrent on either side! But how had M. Charles Duchaine gained entrance there? There seemed to be no entrance. And yet the château stood before my eyes, no dream, but very real indeed.
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