"I know not. I have not yet decided upon my future course. And yet Heaven knows what have been the labors of my mind during that long month I have just spent upon an ambulance-bed, that month during which you were my only thought. Ah! when I think of it, I cannot find words to curse the recklessness with which I disposed of my fortune."
As if she had heard a blasphemy, the young girl drew back a step.
"It is impossible," she exclaimed, "that you should regret having paid what your father owed."
A bitter smile contracted M. de Tregars' lips.
"And suppose I were to tell you," he replied, "that my father in reality owed nothing?"
"Oh!"
"Suppose I told you they took from him his entire fortune, over two millions, as audaciously as a pick-pocket robs a man of his handkerchief? Suppose I told you, that, in his loyal simplicity, he was but a man of straw in the hands of skillful knaves? Have you forgotten what you once heard the Count de Villegre say?"
Mlle. Gilberte had forgotten nothing.
"The Count de Villegre," she replied, "pretended that it was time enough still to compel the men who had robbed your father to disgorge."
"Exactly!" exclaimed Marius. "And now I am determined to make them disgorge."
In the mean time night had quite come. Lights appeared in the shop-windows; and along the line of the Boulevard the gas-lamps were being lit. Alarmed by this sudden illumination, M. de Tregars drew off Mlle. Gilberte to a more obscure spot, by the stairs that lead to the Rue Amelot; and there, leaning against the iron railing, he went on, "Already, at the time of my father's death, I suspected the abominable tricks of which he was the victim. I thought it unworthy of me to verify my suspicions. I was alone in the world: my wants were few. I was fully convinced that my researches would give me, within a brief time, a much larger fortune than the one I gave up.
I found something noble and grand, and which flattered my vanity, in thus abandoning every thing, without discussion, without litigation, and consummating my ruin with a single dash of my pen.
Among my friends the Count de Villegre alone had the courage to tell me that this was a guilty piece of folly; that the silence of the dupes is the strength of the knaves; that my indifference, which made the rascals rich, would make them laugh too. I replied that I did not wish to see the name of Tregars dragged into court in a scandalous law-suit, and that to preserve a dignified silence was to honor my father's memory. Treble fool that I was! The only way to honor my father's memory was to avenge him, to wrest his spoils from the scoundrels who had caused his death. I see it clearly to-day. But, before undertaking any thing, I wished to consult you."
Mlle. Gilberte was listening with the most intense attention. She had come to mingle so completely in her thoughts her future life and that of M. de Tregars, that she saw nothing unusual in the fact of his consulting her upon matters affecting their prospects, and of seeing herself standing there deliberating with him.
"You will require proofs," she suggested.
"I have none, unfortunately," replied M. de Tregars; "at least, none sufficiently positive, and such as are required by courts of justice.
But I think I may find them. My former suspicions have become a certainty. The same good luck that enabled me to deliver you of M.
Costeclar's persecutions, also placed in my hands the most valuable information."
"Then you must act," uttered Mlle. Gilberte resolutely.