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For a moment we thought he was going to die there, for he remained motionless and convulsed, as it were, under Marcasse's caressing hand; then suddenly he sprang up, as if struck with an idea worthy of a man, and set off with the speed of lightning in the direction of Patience's hut. "Yes, go and tell my friend, good dog!" exclaimed Marcasse; "a better friend than you would be more than man."
Thereupon I dragged myself out of bed, and stubbornly resisted all Marcasse's efforts to keep me back; I had the farmer's horse saddled and started off at a gallop. I staggered into the drawing-room without meeting any one except Saint-Jean, who uttered a cry of terror on seeing me, and rushed off without answering my questions. The drawing-room was empty.
This individual bore such a strong resemblance to the one I had just described to Arthur, struck by the parallel, burst into uncontrollable laughter, and moving aside to make way for Marcasse's double, threw himself upon the grass in a convulsive fit of coughing.
Nothing disturbed our repose. When the sun awakened us the cocks were crowing merrily in the courtyard, and the labourers were cracking their rustic jokes as they yoked the oxen under our windows. "All the same there is something at the bottom of it." Such was Marcasse's first remark as he opened his eyes, and took up the conversation where he had dropped it the night before.
Marcasse, however, had understood enough to make him embrace republican ideas and share in those romantic hopes of universal levelling and a return to the golden age, which had been so ardently fostered by old Patience. Thus in Marcasse's sudden resolution there was as much revolutionary enthusiasm as love of adventure.
It is true that my answers to the various questions put to me confirmed Marcasse's statements; but as I declared in all sincerity that for some two months the Trappist had given me no cause for uneasiness or displeasure, and as I refused to attribute the murder to him, it seemed for some days as if he would be forever reinstated in public opinion.
Marcasse's economy, his discretion, his punctuality, seemed likely to make him a valuable man, if he could be trained to put these qualities at the service of others. The one thing to be feared was that he might not be able to accustom himself to his loss of independence.
They hoped to draw from him some information about the chateau of Saint-Severe, the home of a man they hated and envied, M. Hubert de Mauprat. Nobody, then, could discover Marcasse's opinions about anything; it would have been simplest to suppose that he did not take the trouble to have any.
"You must have had two, then," replied the servant; "for I am sure I took one off the bed. It was a black cloak, not new." Mine, as a fact, was lined with red and trimmed with gold lace. Marcasse's was light gray. It could not, therefore, have been one of our cloaks brought up for a moment by the man and then taken back to the stable. "But, what did you do with it?" said the sergeant.
I put my hands to my face; I seemed to hear the fatal beam cracking; I stifled a cry of terror lest I should unnerve him at this solemn and critical moment. But I could not suppress this cry, or help raising my head when I heard two shots fired from the tower. Marcasse's hat fell at the first shot; the second grazed his shoulder. He stopped a moment. "Not touched!" he shouted at us.
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