The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(925)
“You perceive, Mademoiselle, that my only crime was that I refrained from giving Madelon’s father up to justice, thereby making an end of his crimes. I am quite innocent of murder. No torture will draw from me the secret of Cardillac’s iniquities. Not through any action of mine shall that Eternal Power, which has for all this time hidden from Madelon her father’s gruesome crimes, break in upon her now, to her destruction; nor shall earthly vengeance drag the corpse of Cardillac out of the soil which covers it, and brand his mouldering bones with infamy. No; the beloved of my soul shall mourn me as an innocent victim. Time will mitigate her sorrow for me, but her grief for her father’s terrible crimes nothing would ever assuage.”
Olivier ceased, and a torrent of tears fell down his cheeks. He threw himself at Mademoiselle de Scudéri’s feet, saying imploringly: “You are convinced that I am innocent; I know you are. Be merciful to me. Tell me how Madelon is faring.”
Mademoiselle de Scudéri summoned La Martinière, and in a few minutes Madelon was clinging to Olivier’s neck.
“Now that you are here, all is well. I knew that this noble-hearted lady would save you,” Madelon cried over and over again; and Olivier forgot his fate, and all that threatened him.
He was free and happy. In the most touching manner they bewailed what each had suffered for the other, and embraced afresh, and wept for joy at being together again.
Had Mademoiselle de Scudéri not been convinced of Olivier’s innocence before, she must have been so when she saw those two lovers forgetting, in the rapture of the moment, the world, their sufferings and their indescribable sorrows.
“None but a guiltless heart,” she cried, “would be capable of such blissful forgetfulness.”
The morning light came breaking into the room, and Desgrais knocked gently at the door, reminding them that it was time to take Olivier away, as it could not be done later without attracting attention. The lovers had to part.
The dim anticipations which Mademoiselle de Scudéri had felt when Olivier first came in had now embodied themselves in reality—in a terrible fashion. The son of her much-loved Anne was, though innocent, implicated in a manner which apparently made it impossible to save him from a shameful death. She admired his heroism, which led him to prefer death, loaded with the imputation of guilt, to the betrayal of a secret which would kill Madelon. In the whole realm of possibility, she could see no mode of saving the unfortunate lad from his gruesome prison and the dreadful trial. Yet it was firmly impressed on her mind that she must not shrink from any sacrifice to prevent this most crying injustice.
She tortured herself with all kinds of plans and projects, which were chiefly of the most impracticable and impossible kind—rejected as soon as formed. Every glimmer of hope grew fainter and fainter, and she well-nigh despaired. But Madelon’s pious, absolute, childlike confidence, the inspired manner in which she spoke of her lover, soon to be free and to take her to his heart as his wife, restored Mademoiselle de Scudéri’s hopes to some extent.
By way of beginning to do something, she wrote to La Regnie a long letter, in which she said that Olivier Brusson had proved to her in the most credible manner his entire innocence of Cardillac’s murder, and that nothing but a heroic resolution to carry to the grave with him a secret, the disclosure of which would bring destruction upon an innocent and virtuous person, withheld him from laying a statement before the Court, which would completely clear him from all guilt and show that he had never belonged to the band at all. With the best eloquence at her command, she said everything she could think of which might be expected to soften La Regnie’s hard heart.
He replied to this in a few hours, saying he was very glad that Olivier had so thoroughly justified himself in the eyes of his kind patron and protector; but, as for his heroic resolution to carry to the grave with him a secret relating to the crime with which he was charged, he regretted that the Chambre Ardente could feel no admiration for heroism of that description, but must endeavour to dispel it by powerful means. In three days’ time, he had little doubt, he would be in possession of the wondrous secret, which would probably bring many strange matters to light.