Chesnel was rubbing his hands."A hundred thousand francs will go a long way in buying up debts," he thought."The young man is paying a high rate of interest on his loans.We will lock him up down here.Iwill go yonder myself and bring those curs to terms."Chesnel, honest Chesnel, upright, worthy Chesnel, called his darling Comte Victurnien's creditors "curs."Meanwhile his successor was making his way along the Rue du Bercail just as Mlle.Armande's traveling carriage turned into it.Any young man might be expected to feel some curiosity if he saw a traveling carriage stop at a notary's door in such a town and at such an hour of the night; the young man in question was sufficiently inquisitive to stand in a doorway and watch.He saw Mlle.Armande alight.
"Mlle.Armande d'Esgrignon at this time of night!" said he to himself.
"What can be going forward at the d'Esgrignons'?"At the sight of mademoiselle, Chesnel opened the door circumspectly and set down the light which he was carrying; but when he looked out and saw Victurnien, Mlle.Armande's first whispered word made the whole thing plain to him.He looked up and down the street; it seemed quite deserted; he beckoned, and the young Count sprang out of the carriage and entered the courtyard.All was lost.Chesnel's successor had discovered Victurnien's hiding place.
Victurnien was hurried into the house and installed in a room beyond Chesnel's private office.No one could enter it except across the old man's dead body.
"Ah! M.le Comte!" exclaimed Chesnel, notary no longer.
"Yes, monsieur," the Count answered, understanding his old friend's exclamation."I did not listen to you; and now I have fallen into the depths, and I must perish.""No, no," the good man answered, looking triumphantly from Mlle.
Armande to the Count."I have sold my connection.I have been working for a very long time now, and am thinking of retiring.By noon to-morrow I shall have a hundred thousand francs; many things can be settled with that.Mademoiselle, you are tired," he added; "go back to the carriage and go home and sleep.Business to-morrow.""Is he safe?" returned she, looking at Victurnien.
"Yes."
She kissed her nephew; a few tears fell on his forehead.Then she went.
"My good Chesnel," said the Count, when they began to talk of business, "what are your hundred thousand francs in such a position as mine? You do not know the full extent of my troubles, I think."Victurnien explained the situation.Chesnel was thunderstruck.But for the strength of his devotion, he would have succumbed to this blow.
Tears streamed from the eyes that might well have had no tears left to shed.For a few moments he was a child again, for a few moments he was bereft of his senses; he stood like a man who should find his own house on fire, and through a window see the cradle ablaze and hear the hiss of the flames on his children's curls.He rose to his full height --il se dressa en pied, as Amyot would have said; he seemed to grow taller; he raised his withered hands and wrung them despairingly and wildly.
"If only your father may die and never know this, young man! To be a forger is enough; a parricide you must not be.Fly, you say? No.They would condemn you for contempt of court! Oh, wretched boy! Why did you not forge MY signature? _I_ would have paid; I should not have taken the bill to the public prosecutor.--Now I can do nothing.You have brought me to a stand in the lowest pit in hell!--Du Croisier! What will come of it? What is to be done?--If you had killed a man, there might be some help for it.But forgery--FORGERY! And time--the time is flying," he went on, shaking his fist towards the old clock."You will want a sham passport now.One crime leads to another.First," he added, after a pause, "first of all we must save the house of d'Esgrignon.""But the money is still in Mme.de Maufrigneuse's keeping," exclaimed Victurnien.
"Ah!" exclaimed Chesnel."Well, there is some hope left--a faint hope.
Could we soften du Croisier, I wonder, or buy him over? He shall have all the lands if he likes.I will go to him; I will wake him and offer him all we have.--Besides, it was not you who forged that bill; it was I.I will go to jail; I am too old for the hulks, they can only put me in prison.""But the body of the bill is in my handwriting," objected Victurnien, without a sign of surprise at this reckless devotion.
"Idiot!...that is, pardon, M.le Comte.Josephin should have been made to write it," the old notary cried wrathfully."He is a good creature; he would have taken it all on his shoulders.But there is an end of it; the world is falling to pieces," the old man continued, sinking exhausted into a chair."Du Croisier is a tiger; we must be careful not to rouse him.What time is it? Where is the draft? If it is at Paris, it might be bought back from the Kellers; they might accommodate us.Ah! but there are dangers on all sides; a single false step means ruin.Money is wanted in any case.But there! nobody knows you are here, you must live buried away in the cellar if needs must.Iwill go at once to Paris as fast as I can; I can hear the mail coach from Brest."In a moment the old man recovered the faculties of his youth--his agility and vigor.He packed up clothes for the journey, took money, brought a six-pound loaf to the little room beyond the office, and turned the key on his child by adoption.
"Not a sound in here," he said, "no light at night; and stop here till I come back, or you will go to the hulks.Do you understand, M.le Comte? Yes, TO THE HULKS! if anybody in a town like this knows that you are here."With that Chesnel went out, first telling his housekeeper to give out that he was ill, to allow no one to come into the house, to send everybody away, and to postpone business of every kind for three days.
