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Updated: June 24, 2025
Ought he to go and dine with his father? Could he leave Madame Gerdy? He longed to dine at the de Commarin mansion; yet, on the other hand, to leave a dying woman! "Decidedly," he murmured, "I can't go." He sat down at his desk, and with all haste wrote a letter of apology to his father. Madame Gerdy, he said, might die at any moment; he must remain with her.
Don't speak of her in this icy tone; but tell me what you mean by calling her Madame Gerdy?" "What I mean?" rejoined the advocate in a hollow tone, "what I mean?" Then rising from his arm-chair, he took several strides about the room, and, returning to his place near the old fellow, said, "Because, M. Tabaret, Madame Gerdy is not my mother!"
After a selection, which he was some time in making, the advocate opened a letter, and commenced reading in a voice which trembled at times, in spite of his efforts to render it calm. "'My dearly loved Valerie, "Valerie," said he, "is Madame Gerdy." "I know, I know. Do not interrupt yourself." Noel then resumed. "'My dearly loved Valerie, "'This is a happy day.
She never had a husband, the defunct Gerdy never existed. I was a bastard, dear M. Tabaret, very much a bastard; Noel, son of the girl Gerdy and an unknown father!" "Ah!" cried the old fellow; "that then was the reason why your marriage with Mademoiselle Levernois was broken off four years ago?" "Yes, my friend, that was the reason.
"That now," cried the old fellow indignantly, "is even more infamous than all the rest." "Do not accuse my father," answered Noel gravely; "his connection with Madame Gerdy lasted a long time. I remember a haughty-looking man who used sometimes to come and see me at school, and who could be no other than the count. But the rupture came." "Naturally," sneered M. Tabaret, "a great nobleman "
"M. Albert de Commarin shall be arrested; that is settled. The different formalities to be gone through and the perquisitions will occupy some time, which I wish to employ in interrogating the Count de Commarin, the young man's father, and your friend M. Noel Gerdy, the young advocate. The letters he possesses are indispensable to me."
Your going would be useless. Madame Gerdy exists probably still; but her mind is dead. Her brain was unable to resist so violent a shock. The unfortunate woman would neither recognise nor understand you." "Go then alone," sighed the count, "go, my son!" The words "my son," pronounced with a marked emphasis, sounded like a note of victory in Noel's ears. He bowed to take his leave.
Who else can have committed this assassination? Who but he had an interest in silencing Widow Lerouge, in suppressing her testimony, in destroying her papers? He, and only he. Poor Noel! who is as dull as honesty, warned him, and he acted. Should we fail to establish his guilt, he will remain de Commarin more than ever; and my young advocate will be Noel Gerdy to the grave." "Yes, but "
"And will she speak then?" "Certainly; but that will neither modify the nature nor the gravity of the disease." "And will she recover her reason?" "Perhaps," answered the doctor, looking fixedly at his friend; "but why do you ask that?" "Ah, my dear Herve, one word from Madame Gerdy, only one, would be of such use to me!" "For your affair, eh! Well, I can tell you nothing, can promise you nothing.
In the meanwhile, Madame Gerdy took back her child; and Claudine had nothing more to restrain her. Protected and counselled by her mother, whom she had taken to live with us, on the pretence of looking after Jacques, she managed to deceive me for more than a year. I thought she had given up her bad habits, but not at all; she lived a most disgraceful life.
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