among thieves,” seldom holds good after the “stroke.” There is always a quarrel over the division of the spoils.
This distrustful Clameran foresaw a thousand difficulties and counter-plots to be guarded against in his dealings with Raoul.
“Why,” he pondered, “did the villain assume this disguise? Why this alibi at Paris? Can he be laying a trap for me? It is true that I have a hold upon him; but then I am completely at his mercy. Those accursed letters which I have written to him, while here, are so many proofs against me. Can he be thinking of cutting loose from me, and making off with all the profits of our enterprise?”
Louis never once during the night closed his eyes; but by daybreak he had fully made up his mind how to act, and with feverish impatience waited for evening to come, to communicate his views with Raoul.
His anxiety made him so restless that the unobserving Gaston finally noticed it, and asked him what the matter was; if he was sick, or troubled about anything.
At last evening came, and, at the appointed hour, Louis went to the field where they had met the night previous, and found Raoul lying on the grass smoking a fragrant cigar, as if he had no other object in life except to blow little clouds of smoke in the air, and count the stars in the clear sky above him.
“Well?” he carelessly said, as Louis approached, “have you decided upon anything?”
“Yes. I have two projects, either of which would probably accomplish our object.”
“I am listening.”
Louis was silently thoughtful for a minute, as if arranging his thoughts so as to present them as clearly and briefly as possible.
“My first plan,” he began, “depends upon your approval. What would you say, if I proposed to you to renounce the affair altogether?”
“What!”
“Would you consent to disappear, leave France, and return to London, if I paid you a good round sum?”
“What do you call a good round sum?”
“I will give you a hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
“My respected uncle,” said Raoul with a contemptuous shrug, “I am distressed to see how little you know me! You try to deceive me, to outwit me, which is ungenerous and foolish on your part; ungenerous, because it fails to carry out our agreement; foolish, because as you know well enough, my power equals yours.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I am sorry for it. I understand myself, and that is sufficient. Oh! I understand you, my dear uncle. I have watched you with careful eyes, which are not to be deceived; I see through you clearly. If you offer me one hundred and fifty thousand francs, it is because you intend to walk off with half a million for yourself.”
“You are talking like a fool,” said Clameran with virtuous indignation.
“Not at all; I only judge the future by the past. Of all the large sums extorted from Mme. Fauvel, often against my wishes, I never received a tenth part.”
“But you know we have a reserve fund.”
“All very good; but you have the keeping of it, my good uncle. It is very nice for you, but not so funny for me. If our little plot were to be discovered to-morrow, you would walk off with the money-box, and leave your devoted nephew to be sent to prison.”
“Ingrate!” muttered Louis, as if distressed at these undeserved reproaches of his protege.
“You have hit on the very word I was trying to remember,” cried Raoul: “‘ingrate’ is the name that just suits you. But we have not time for this nonsense. I will end the matter by proving how you have been trying to deceive me.”
“I would like to hear you do so if you can.”
“Very good. In the first place, you told me that your brother only possessed a modest competency. Now, I learn that Gaston has an income of at least sixty thousand francs. It is useless for you to deny it; and how much is this property worth? A hundred thousand crowns. He had four hundred thousand francs deposited in M. Fauvel’s bank. Total, seven hundred thousand francs. And, besides all this, the broker in Oloron has orders to buy up a large amount of stocks and railroad shares, which will require large cash payments. I have not wasted my day, you see, and have obtained all the information I came for.”
Raoul’s information was too concise and exact for Louis to deny it.
“You might have sense enough,” Raoul went on, “to know how to manage your forces if you undertake to be a commander. We had a splendid game in our hands; and you, who held the cards, have made a perfect muddle of it.”
“I think—”
“That the game is lost? That is my opinion too, and all through you. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
“I could not control events.”
“Yes, you could, if you had been shrewd. Fools sit down and wait for an opportunity; sensible men make one. What did we agree upon in London? We were to implore my good mother to assist us a little, and, if she complied with our wishes, we were to be flattering and affectionate in our devotion to her. And what was the result? At the risk of killing the golden goose, you have made me torment the poor woman until she is almost crazy.”
“It was prudent to hasten matters.”
“You think so, do you? Was it also to hasten matters that you took it into your head to marry Madeleine? That made it necessary to let her into the secret; and, ever since, she has advised and set her aunt against us. I would not be surprised if she makes her confess everything to M. Fauvel, or even inform against us at the police-office.”
“I love Madeleine!”
“You told me that before. And suppose you do love her. You led me into this piece of business without having studied its various bearings, without knowing what you were about. No one but an idiot, my beloved uncle, would go and put his foot into a trap, and then say, ‘If I had only known about it!’ You should have made it your business to know everything. You came to me, and said, ‘Your father is dead,’ which was a lie to start with; perhaps you call it a mistake. He is living; and, after what we have done, I dare not appear before him. He would have left me a million, and now I shall not get a sou. He will find his Valentine, and then good-by.”
“Enough!” angrily interrupted Louis. “If I have made a mistake, I know how to redeem it. I can save everything yet.”
“You can? How so?”
“That is my secret,” said Louis gloomily.
Louis and Raoul were silent for a minute. And this silence between them, in this lonely spot, at dead of night, was so horribly significant that both of them shuddered.
An abominable thought had flashed across their evil minds, and without a word or look they understood each other.
Louis broke the ominous silence, by abruptly saying:
“Then you refuse to disappear if I pay you a hundred and fifty thousand francs? Think
