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Updated: June 4, 2025
I was myself just wondering how the Duchess of Saint-Maclou found it, when a loud cry of warning startled us. We had been standing on the edge of the road, and a horse, going at a quick trot, was within five yards of us. As it reached us, it was sharply reined in. To my amazement, old Jean, the duchess' servant, sat upon it. When he saw me, a smile spread over his weather-beaten face.
"Fetch it back." "Sir! The driver will gallop down the hill; he could not be overtaken." "How fortunate!" said I. "I do not see," observed Mme. de Saint-Maclou, "that it makes all that difference." She seemed hurt at the serious way in which Gustave took her joke. "If I had told the truth, you wouldn't have come," she said in justification. "Not another word is necessary," said I, with a bow.
"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.
The interior of the church merits the whole attention of the curious. I will mention particularly the beautifully sculptured staircase, which leads to the organ. The authors of the picturesque and romantic travels into ancient France, have not forgotten to place this gothic jewel in their work. The great porch of Saint-Maclou is very remarkable.
It's rather funny, isn't it, Mr. Aycon?" and she munched a morsel of toast, and leaned her elbows on the table and sent a sparkling glance across at me, for all the world as she had done on the first night I knew her. The cares of the world did not gall the shoulders of Mme. de Saint-Maclou. "But why are you here?" said I, sticking to my point.
In that year, Geoffroy de Capreville granted a portion of ground belonging to himself, and situated in the parish of Saint-Maclou, without the town. At that time the church of Saint-Maclou was only a chapel, of which the construction was not very remarkable. About the middle of the XVth century, the erection of the present edifice was commenced.
I sought out Suzanne, got her to smuggle my luggage downstairs, gave her a parting present, took off my livery and put on the groom's old suit, and was ready to leave the house of M. de Saint-Maclou. At nine o'clock my short servitude ended. I felt at once a different being so true it is that the tailor makes the man. "You are well out of that," grunted old Jean.
Again I rang my bell; but the waiter was at the door before it ceased tinkling. "Where's she going to?" I asked. "To the house of the Duke of Saint-Maclou, sir," he answered, wiping his brow and sighing for relief that he had got rid of her. "And the young lady where is she?" "She has already gone, sir." "Already gone!" I cried. "Gone where? Gone when?"
Minute followed minute; and then I heard the hoofs of a horse galloping at full speed along the road from the house toward Avranches. Lafleur was dead and done with; Pierre might go his ways; I lay fainting in the wood; the Cardinal's Necklace was still against my side. What recked the Duke of Saint-Maclou of all that?
Who has not endured the dull dogged despair in which the story, damned by the stony faces of the auditors, has yet to drag on a hated weary life to a dishonored grave? These stages came and passed as I related to Mme. de Saint-Maclou how I came to be in a position to hand back to her the Cardinal's Necklace. Still, silent, pale, with her lips curled in a scornful smile, she sat and listened.
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