Chapter XVI

Madame Bastien could no longer doubt Frederick's intentions, for she had seen him aim at Raoul de Pont Brillant, at the same time exclaiming, "I have you now, M. le marquis;" but this ambuscade seemed so cowardly and so atrocious to the unfortunate woman that, in spite of the conclusive evidence against her son, she still tried to close her eyes to the truth.

"Frederick, my child, what are you doing here?" asked Madame Bastien, tremulously.

"You do not answer me, my child," she continued. "Your eyes are haggard, you look so strangely. You have been suffering so much for some days past that it has brought on a sort of nervous fever. The fact that you do not even know where you are or how you come to be here is proof of that. You are like one who has just been suddenly awakened from a dream. Am I not right, Frederick?"

"I know where I am."

"Yes, you do now, but you did not a moment ago."

"On the contrary, I tell you that I do know perfectly well why I am hiding here with my gun."

"Then Jean Francois was right," said the poor mother, pretending to be reassured. "What he told me was true."

"What did he tell you?"

"That you were poaching in the Pont Brillant woods. You can judge of my anxiety when I heard that, so I hastened here at once with Jean Francois, for it is frightfully imprudent in you, my poor child. Don't you know that M. le marquis--"

The words M. le marquis startled Frederick out of his terrible calmness. He clenched his fists furiously and, confronting his mother with a ferocious expression upon his face, exclaimed:

"It was M. le marquis I was lying in wait for; do you hear me, mother?"

"No, Frederick, no," replied the poor mother, shuddering.

"I am determined to make myself understood, then," said Frederick, with a frightful smile. "Knowing that M. le marquis would pass here about nightfall on his way home, I loaded my gun and came and concealed myself behind this tree to kill M. le marquis as he passed. Do you understand me now, mother?"

On hearing this terrible confession, Madame Bastien's brain reeled for a moment; then she showed herself to be truly heroic.

Placing one of her hands on her son's shoulder, she laid the other on his forehead, saying in a calm, perfectly calm, voice, and as if talking to herself:

"How hot his poor head is, and he is still delirious with fever! My God, oh, my God, how can I induce him to follow me?"

Frederick, amazed by his mother's words and her apparent tranquillity after the terrible confession he had just made, exclaimed:

"I am perfectly sane, I tell you, mother. It is you as much as myself that I wish to avenge, and my hatred, you see--"

"Yes, yes, my child, I know," interrupted Madame Bastien, too much terrified to notice Frederick's last words.

Then, kissing him on the forehead, she said, soothingly:

"Yes, yes, of course you have your senses, so come home with me; for it is getting late and we have been out in these woods a long time."

"The place suits me well enough and I shall come back again," answered Frederick, sullenly.

"Of course we will come back again, my child, but in order to do that we shall first have to go away."

"Don't exasperate me too much, mother."

"Hush, hush, I implore you," whispered Marie, placing her hand upon her son's lips and listening breathlessly. "Don't you hear footsteps? My God, who is coming?"

Frederick caught up his gun.

"Ah, I know," murmured his mother, recovering from her alarm, after a moment's reflection, "it is Jean Francois. He was to search for you in one side of the grove while I searched in the other."

"Is that you, Jean Francois?" she called out, cautiously.

"Yes, Madame Bastien," replied the worthy farmer, who was not yet visible but who could be distinctly heard forcing his way through the branches. "I did not find M. Frederick."

"My son is here, Jean Francois."

"I am glad of it, Madame Bastien, for I just heard voices over by the lake and think some of the gamekeepers must be making their rounds," said the worthy farmer, stepping into the clearing.

Frederick, in spite of the violence of his animosity, dared not repeat the threats he had just uttered before his mother, so, taking his gun under his arm, he silently and gloomily prepared to follow Madame Bastien.

On reaching the farmer's cottage that worthy man insisted upon harnessing his horse to his cart and taking Marie and her son home, and she accepted his offer, being too much overcome with fatigue and emotion to be capable of walking such a distance.

They had reached home about nine o'clock in the evening and Frederick had scarcely entered the house before he tottered and fell unconscious upon the floor. This swoon was followed by a severe nervous spasm which terrified his mother beyond expression, but with old Marguerite's assistance she did everything she could for her son, who was carried into his own room and put to bed.

During this nervous spasm, though his eyes were closed, Frederick wept bitterly, and when he recovered consciousness and saw his mother leaning over him he held out his arms and pressed her tenderly to his breast. This crisis over, he seemed much more calm, and, remarking that he chiefly needed rest and quiet now, he turned his face toward the wall and did not utter another word.

With rare presence of mind, Marie had ordered all the outside shutters of her son's room closed before he was taken into it. There was no way of reaching the room except through hers, where she intended to watch all night, with the communicating door slightly ajar.

She was not one of those persons who are paralysed by misfortune. Terrible as the discovery she had just made was, as soon as she was alone she faced it resolutely, after vainly endeavouring to persuade herself that her son had not been sane when he premeditated such an execrable crime.

"I can no longer doubt that Frederick hates the young marquis with a mortal hatred," she said to herself, "and this long suppressed animosity is undoubtedly the cause of the great change which has taken place in him during the last few months. This hatred has attained such an intensity that my son, after having attempted to kill M. de Pont Brillant, cannot be induced to abandon that horrible idea even now. These are unquestionably the facts of the case. Now to what mysterious circumstance am I to impute the origin and the development of such a deadly animosity against a youth of his own age? How is it that my son, who has been so carefully reared, and who has heretofore made me the proudest and happiest of mothers, can have conceived such a horrible idea? All this is of secondary importance, so I will postpone the solution of these questions which puzzle my reason and make me doubt myself until some later day. What I must do now and without delay is to save my son from this terrible temptation, and thus prevent him from committing a murder."

And after having satisfied herself that her son was sleeping quietly, she seated herself at a table and wrote the following letter to her husband:

"TO M. BASTIEN:--I wrote you only a few days ago in relation to
Frederick's poor health and to the departure of the tutor you had
authorised me to employ.

"My son's condition causes me great uneasiness, and I realise the
urgent necessity of taking some decided action in the matter.

"I consulted our friend, Doctor Dufour, again yesterday. He feels
certain that Frederick's age and rapid growth is the cause of his
nervous and morbid condition, and advises me to divert his mind
from himself as much as possible, or, better still, travel with
him.

"This I am anxious to do, as in the seclusion in which we live it
is almost impossible for me to give Frederick any diversion.

"It is hardly probable that your business will allow you to
accompany us to Hyeres, where I wish to take my son, but Marguerite
will accompany us, and we may be absent five or six months, or a
much shorter time, as that will depend upon the improvement in
Frederick's health.

"For reasons which it would take too long to enumerate here, I have
fixed upon next Monday as the date of my departure. I would have
started to-morrow morning if I had had the necessary amount of
money, but the small sum you sent me last month has been used for
household expenses, and you know I have no other money.

"I send this letter to Blois by a messenger, so you will receive it
day after to-morrow, and I implore you to answer by return mail,
enclosing a draft on your banker in Blois. I have no idea what
amount you will consider adequate. You know the simplicity of my
habits. Calculate the amount that will be needed to transport us to
Hyeres by diligence, add to that the trifling expenses that cannot
be exactly foreseen, and sufficient money to live upon for a short
time. We will establish ourselves in the most economical manner,
and I will afterward write you exactly how much it will cost us a
month.

"Stress of business often prevents you from replying to my letters
promptly or even at all, but you must realise the importance of
this letter too much to permit any delay in this instance.

"I do not wish to alarm you, but I feel it my duty to tell you that
Frederick shows symptoms of so grave a nature that this journey
may, and I hope will, be the salvation of my son.

"I think I must have given you during the last seventeen years
sufficient proofs of my strength of character and devoted affection
for Frederick for you to feel satisfied that, sudden as this
resolution on my part may appear to you, you will do everything in
your power to aid me in carrying out a resolution dictated by the
most urgent and imperative necessity.

"I shall leave old Andre here. He will take charge of the house,
and perform any service you may require during your visits. He is a
trusty man to whom I can safely confide the charge of everything in
my absence.

"Good-bye. I end my letter rather abruptly so it can be mailed this
evening.

"I hope to receive a reply on Monday, in which case I shall take
the diligence that same evening for Paris, where we shall remain
only twenty-four hours, and then leave for Lyons on our way
southward.

"Once more adieu.

"MARIE BASTIEN."

Her letter concluded, Madame Bastien ordered the horse harnessed so the letter could be taken to Blois at once.

After satisfying herself several times in regard to the condition of her son, who seemed to be resting more quietly, Madame Bastien sat down and began to reflect upon the determination to travel that she had just announced to her husband, and found it more and more opportune, though she asked herself anxiously how she should manage to prevent Frederick from getting out of her sight for a moment until the time appointed for their departure. The little clock on the mantel had just struck twelve, and the young mother was still absorbed in the same sorrowful reflections, when she fancied she heard the quick ring of a horse's hoofs in the distance, and the sound came nearer and nearer, until the animal paused at the door of the farmhouse.

A few minutes afterward an unwonted bustle pervaded the dwelling and some one rapped at the door of Madame Bastien's chamber.

"Who is there?" she asked.

"I, Marguerite, madame."

"What do you want?"

"Doctor Dufour is here, madame. He just arrived on horseback."

"Light a fire in the sitting-room and ask the doctor to wait for me there. I will be down in a moment."

Then, recollecting that she would be obliged to leave her son, Madame Bastien recalled the servant, and said:

"I have changed my mind. I will see the doctor here in my room. Show him up at once."

Almost immediately the doctor appeared, preceded by Marguerite.

"Good Heavens! what is the matter with you?" exclaimed M. Dufour on seeing Marie.

"Nothing, doctor--"

"Nothing!" repeated the physician, scrutinising Marie with evident surprise, so terrible was the change which the events of the previous evening had wrought in her appearance. "Nothing?"

"Ah, yes, I know," replied Madame Bastien, with a heart-broken smile, reading the doctor's thoughts from the expression of his face.

Then placing a finger on her lips, she added, in a low tone, with a meaning glance toward the door of Frederick's chamber:

"We must be very careful, my dear doctor, my son is in there asleep. He has had a terrible experience this evening. I was about to write to you and ask you to come to-morrow. It was Heaven that sent you."

"As my coming seems so opportune, I shall not have to apologise for coming at such an unseasonable hour. I wished to talk with you about a matter that would brook no delay, so I ventured to come almost in the middle of the night and at the risk of disturbing you."

"My God! what is it?"

"Your son is asleep, is he not?"

"I think so."

"But he might hear us if he is not, so let us go to the other end of the room and speak low, for it is a matter that concerns him."