As she went towards la Peyrade, carrying her precious bundle with one hand, with the other she was arranging the imaginary cap of her "little darling," having no eyes except for the sad creation of her disordered brain. Step by step, as she advanced, la Peyrade, pale, trembling, and with staring eyes, retreated backwards, until he struck against a seat, into which, losing his equilibrium, he fell.
A man of Corentin's power and experience, and who, moreover, knew to its slightest detail the horrible drama in which Lydie had lost her reason, had already, of course, taken in the situation, but it suited his purpose and his ideas to allow the clear light of evidence to pierce this darkness.
"Look, doctor," said Lydie, unfastening the bundle, and putting the pins in her mouth as she did so, "don't you see that she is growing thinner every day?"La Peyrade could not answer; he kept his handkerchief over his face, and his breath came so fast from his chest that he was totally unable to utter a word.
Then, with one of those gestures of feverish impatience, to which her mental state predisposed her, she exclaimed, hastily:--"But look at her doctor, look!" taking his arm violently and forcing him to show his features. "My God!" she cried, when she had looked him in the face.
Letting fall the linen bundle in her arms, she threw herself hastily backwards, and her eyes grew haggard. Passing her white hands rapidly over her forehead and through her hair, tossing it into disorder, she seemed to be making an effort to obtain from her memory some dormant recollection. Then, like a frightened mare, which comes to smell an object that has given it a momentary terror, she approached la Peyrade slowly, stooping to look into his face, which he kept lowered, while, in the midst of a silence inexpressible, she examined him steadily for several seconds. Suddenly a terrible cry escaped her breast; she ran for refuge into the arms of Corentin, and pressing herself against him with all her force, she exclaimed:--"Save me! save me! It is he! the wretch! It is he who did it!"And, with her finger pointed at la Peyrade, she seemed to nail the miserable object of her terror to his place.
After this explosion, she muttered a few disconnected words, and her eyes closed; Corentin felt the relaxing of all the muscles by which she had held him as in a vice the moment before, and he took her in his arms and laid her on the sofa, insensible.
"Do not stay here, monsieur," said Corentin. "Go into my study; I will come to you presently."A few minutes later, after giving Lydie into the care of Katte and Bruneau, and despatching Perrache for Doctor Bianchon, Corentin rejoined la Peyrade.
"You see now, monsieur," he said with solemnity, "that in pursuing with a sort of passion the idea of this marriage, I was following, in a sense, the ways of God.""Monsieur," said la Peyrade, with compunction, "I will confess to you--""Useless," said Corentin; "you can tell me nothing that I do not know;I, on the contrary, have much to tell you. Old Peyrade, your uncle, in the hope of earning a POT for this daughter whom he idolized, entered into a dangerous private enterprise, the nature of which I need not explain. In it he made enemies; enemies who stopped at nothing,--murder, poison, rape. To paralyze your uncle's action by attacking him in his dearest spot, Lydie was, not abducted, but enticed from her home and taken to a house apparently respectable, where for ten days she was kept concealed. She was not much alarmed by this detention, being told that it was done at her father's wish, and she spent her time with her music--you remember, monsieur, how she sang?""Oh!" exclaimed la Peyrade, covering his face with his hands.
"I told you yesterday that you might perhaps have more upon your conscience than the Thuillier house. But you were young; you had just come from your province, with that brutality, that frenzy of Southern blood in your veins which flings itself upon such an occasion.
Besides, your relationship became known to those who were preparing the ruin of this new Clarissa Harlowe, and I am willing to believe than an abler and better man than you might not have escaped the entanglement into which you fell. Happily, Providence has granted that there is nothing absolutely irreparable in this horrible history. The same poison, according to the use that is made of it, may give either death or health.""But, monsieur," said la Peyrade, "shall I not always be to her an object of horror?""The doctor, monsieur," said Katte, opening the door.
"How is Mademoiselle Lydie?" asked la Peyrade, eagerly.