folly!"

"Useless folly! Zounds! Marquis, you carry matters with a high hand. Do
you think that this d----d baron adores you? What would you say if you
heard that he was conspiring against us?"

"I should answer with a shrug of the shoulders."

"You would! Very well; do me the favor to question Chupin."

CHAPTER XV

It was only two weeks since the Duc de Sairmeuse had returned to France;
he had not yet had time to shake the dust of exile from his feet, and
already his imagination saw enemies on every side.

He had been at Sairmeuse only two days, and yet he unhesitatingly
accepted the venomous reports which Chupin poured into his ears.

The suspicions which he was endeavoring to make Martial share were
cruelly unjust.

At the moment when the duke accused the baron of conspiring against the
house of Sairmeuse, that unfortunate man was weeping at the bedside of
his son, who was, he believed, at the point of death.

Maurice was indeed dangerously ill.

His excessively nervous organization had succumbed before the rude
assaults of destiny.

When, in obedience to M. Lacheneur's imperative order, he left the grove
on the Reche, he lost the power of reflecting calmly and deliberately
upon the situation.

Marie-Anne's incomprehensible obstinacy, the insults he had received
from the marquis, and Lacheneur's feigned anger were mingled in
inextricable confusion, forming one immense, intolerable misfortune, too
crushing for his powers of resistance.

The peasants who met him on his homeward way were struck by his singular
demeanor, and felt convinced that some great catastrophe had just
befallen the house of the Baron d'Escorval.

Some bowed; others spoke to him, but he did not see or hear them.

Force of habit--that physical memory which mounts guard when the mind is
far away--brought him back to his home.

His features were so distorted with suffering that Mme. d'Escorval, on
seeing him, was seized with a most sinister presentiment, and dared not
address him.

He spoke first.

"All is over!" he said, hoarsely, "but do not be worried, mother; I have
some courage, as you shall see."

He did, in fact, seat himself at the table with a resolute air. He ate
even more than usual; and his father noticed, without alluding to it,
that he drank much more wine than usual.

He was very pale, his eyes glittered, his gestures were excited, and his
voice was husky. He talked a great deal, and even jested.

"Why wi