CHAPTER XVIII.

VERY often, after his release from prison, Jacques Dantin went to the corner of the cemetery at Montmartre, where his friend lay. And he always carried flowers. It had become to him, since the terrible strain of his detention, a necessity, a habit. The dead are living! They wait, they understand, they listen!

It seemed to Dantin that he had but one aim. Alas! What had been the wish, the last dream of the dead man would never be realized. That fortune which Rovere had intended for the child whom he had no right to call his own would go, was going to some far-off cousins of whose existence the ex-Consul was not even aware perhaps, and whom he certainly had never known--to some indifferent persons, chance relatives, strangers.

"I ought not to have waited for him to tell me what his intentions were regarding his daughter," Dantin often thought. What would become of her, the poor girl, who knew the secret of her birth and who remained silent, piously devoting herself to the old soldier whose name she bore?

One day in February a sad, gray day, Jacques Dantin, thinking of the past Winter so unhappy of the sad secret grave and heavy, strolled along toward that granite tomb near which Rovere slept. He recalled the curious crowd which had accompanied his dead friend to its last resting place: the flowers; the under current of excitement; the cortege. Silence now filled the place! Dark shadows could be seen here and there between the tombs at the end of paths. It was not a visiting day nor an hour usual for funerals. This solitude pleased Jacques. He felt near to him whom he loved.

Louis-Pierre Rovere. That name, which Moniche had had engraved, evoked many remembrances for this man who had for a time been suspected of assassinating him. All his childhood, all his youth, all the past! How quickly the years had fled, such ruined years. So much of fever, of agitation--so many ambitions, deceptions, in order to end here.

"He is at rest at least," thought Dantin, remembering his own life, without aim, without happiness. And he also would rest soon, having not even a friend in this great city of Paris whom he could depend upon to pay him a last visit. A ruined, wicked, useless life!

He again bade Rovere good-bye speaking to him, calling him thee and thou as of old. Then he went slowly away. But at the end of a walk he turned around to look once more at the place where his friend lay. He saw, coming that way, between the tombs, as if by some cross alley, a woman in black, who was walking directly toward the place he had left. He stopped, waiting--yes, it was to Rovere's tomb that she was going. Tall, svelte, and as far as Jacques Dantin could see, she was young. He said to himself:

"It is his daughter!"

The memory of their last interview came to him. He saw his unhappy friend, haggard, standing in front of his open safe, searching through his papers for those which represented his child's fortune. If this was his friend's daughter, it was to him that Rovere had looked to assure her future.

He walked slowly back to the tomb. The woman in black was now kneeling near the gray stone. Bent over, arranging a bouquet of chrysanthemums which she had brought. Dantin could see only her kneeling form and black draperies.

She was praying now!

Dantin stood looking at her, and when at last she arose he saw that she was tall and elegant in her mourning robes. He advanced toward her. The noise of his footsteps on the gravel caused her to turn her head, and Dantin saw a beautiful face, young and sad. She had blonde hair and large eyes, which opened wide in surprise. He saw the same expression of the eyes which Rovere's had borne.

The young woman instinctively made a movement as if to go away, to give place to the newcomer. But Dantin stopped her with a gesture.

"Do not go away, Mademoiselle. I am the best friend of the one who sleeps here."

She stopped, pale and timid.

"I know very well that you loved him," he added.

She unconsciously let a frightened cry escape her and looked helplessly around.

"He told me all," Dantin slowly said. "I am Jacques Dantin. He has spoken to you of me, I think"----

"Yes," the young woman answered.

Dantin involuntarily shivered. Her voice had the same _timbre_ as Rovere's.

In the silence of the cemetery, near the tomb, before that name, Louis-Pierre Rovere, which seemed almost like the presence of his dead friend, Dantin felt the temptation to reveal to this girl what her father had wished her to know.

They knew each other without ever having met. One word was enough, one name was sufficient, in order that the secret which united them should bring them nearer each other. What Dantin was to Rovere, Rovere had told Marthe again and again.

Then, as if from the depths of the tomb, Rovere had ordered him to speak. Jacques Dantin, in the solemn silence of that City of the Dead, confided to the young girl what her father had tried to tell him. He spoke rapidly, the words, "A legacy--in trust--a fortune" fell from his lips. But the young girl quickly interrupted him with a grand gesture.

"I do not wish to know what any one has told you of me. I am the daughter of a man who awaits me at Blois, who is old, who loves only me, who needs only me, and I need nothing!"

There was in her tone an accent of command, of resolution, which Dantin recognized as one of Rovere's most remarkable characteristics.

Had Dantin known nothing, this sound in the voice, this ardent look on the pale face, would have given him a hint or a suspicion, and have obliged him to think of Rovere. Rovere lived again in this woman in black whom Jacques Dantin saw for the first time.

"Then?" asked this friend of the dead man, as if awaiting an order.

"Then," said the young girl in her deep voice, "when you meet me near this tomb do not speak to me of anything. If you should meet me outside this cemetery, do not recognize me. The secret which was confided to you by the one who sleeps there, is the secret of a dead one whom I adored--_my mother_; and of a living person whom I reverence--_my father!_"

She accented the words with a sort of tender, passionate piety, and Jacques Dantin saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"Now, adieu!" she said.

Jacques still wished to speak of that last confidence of the dying man, but she said again:

"Adieu!"

With her hand, gloved in black, she made the sign of the Cross, smiled sadly as she looked at the tomb where the chrysanthemums lay, then lowering her veil she went away, and Dantin, standing near the gray tomb, saw her disappear at the end of an alley.

The martyr, expiating near the old crippled man, a fault of which she was innocent, went back to him who was without suspicion; to him who adored her and to whom she was, in their poor apartment in Blois, his saint and his daughter.

She would watch, she would lose her youth, near that old soldier whose robust constitution would endure many, many long years. She would pay her dead mother's debt; she would pay it by devoting every hour of her life to this man whose name she bore--an illustrious name, a name belonging to the victories, to the struggles, to the history of yesterday--she would be the hostage, the expiatory victim.

With all her life would she redeem the fault of that other!

"And who knows, my poor Rovere," said Jacques Dantin, "thy daughter, proud of her sacrifice, is perhaps happier in doing this!"

In his turn he left the tomb, he went out of the cemetery, he wished to walk to his lodging in the Rue Richelieu. He had only taken a few steps along the Boulevard, where--it seemed but yesterday--he had followed (talking with Bernardet) behind Rovere's funeral carriage, when he nearly ran into a little man who was hurrying along the pavement. The police officer saluted him, with a shaking of the head, which had in it regret, a little confusion, some excuses.

"Ah! Monsieur Dantin, what a grudge you must have against me!"

"Not at all," said Dantin. "You thought that you were doing your duty, and it did not displease me to have you try to so quickly avenge my poor Rovere."

"Avenge him! Yes, he will be! I would not give four sous for Charles Prades's head to-morrow, when he is tried. We shall see each other in court. _Au revoir_, Monsieur Dantin, and all my excuses!"

"_Au revoir_, Monsieur Bernardet, and all my compliments!"

The two men separated. Bernardet was on his way home to breakfast. He was late. Mme. Bernardet would be waiting, and a little red and breathless he hurried along. He stopped on hearing a newsboy announce the last number of _Lutece_.

"Ask for the account of the trial to-morrow: The inquest by Paul Rodier on the crime of the Boulevard de Clichy!"

The newsboy saluted Bernardet whom he knew very well.

"Give me a paper!" said the police officer. The boy pulled out a paper from the package he was carrying, and waved it over his head like a flag.

"Ah! I understand, that interests you, Monsieur Bernardet!"

And while the little man looked for the heading _Lutece_ in capital letters--the title which Paul Rodier had given to a series of interviews with celebrated physicians, the newsboy, giving Bernardet his change, said:

"To-morrow is the trial. But there is no doubt, is there, Monsieur Bernardet? Prades is condemned in advance!"

"He has confessed, it is an accomplished fact," Bernardet replied, pocketing his change.

"_Au revoir_ and thanks, Monsieur Bernardet."

And the newsboy, going on his way, cried out:

"Ask for _Lutece_--The Rovere trial! The affair to-morrow! Paul Rodier's inquest on the eye of the dead man!" His voice was at last drowned in the noise of tramways and cabs.

M. Bernardet hurried on. The little ones would have become impatient, yes, yes, waiting for him, and asking for him around the table at home. He looked at the paper which he had bought. Paul Rodier, in regard to the question which he, Bernardet, had raised, had interviewed savants physiologists, psychologists, and in good journalistic style had published, the evening before the trial, the result of his inquest.

M. Bernardet read as he hastened along the long titles in capitals in large head lines.

"A Scientific Problem Apropos of the Rovere Affair!"

"Questions of Medical Jurisprudence!"

"The Eye of the Dead Man!"

"Interviews and Opinions of MM. Les Docteurs Brouardel, Roux, Duclaux, Pean, Robin, Pozzi, Blum, Widal, Gilles de la Tourette"----

Bernardet turned the leaves. The interviews filled two pages at least in solid columns.

"So much the better! So much the better!" said the police officer enchanted. And hastening along even faster, he said to himself:

"I am going to read all that to the children; yes, all that--it will amuse them--life is a romance like any other! More incredible than any other! And these questions; the unknown, the invisible, all these problems--how interesting they are! And the mystery--so amusing!"

JULES CLARETIE of the French Academy; Mrs. Carlton A. Kingsbury, Translator.

Transcriber's Notes:

For reasons unknown, the chapter headings show no Chapter XII and no