Mauprat
been able to utter she seemed to confirm the supposition. Only one person accused me, and that was Patience; but he had accused me before none but his two friends, Marcasse and the Abbé Aubert, and then only after pledging them to secrecy.
"There is no need," added Marcasse, "for me to tell you that the abbé maintains an absolute silence, and refuses to believe that you are guilty. As for myself, I swear to you that I shall never———"
"Stop! stop!" I said. "Do not tell me even that; it would imply that some one in the world might actually believe it. But Edmée said something extraordinary to Patience just as she was dying; for she is dead; it is useless for you to try to deceive me. She is dead, and I shall never see her again."
"She is not dead!" cried Marcasse.
And his solemn oaths convinced me, for I knew that he would have tried in vain to lie; his simple soul would have risen in revolt against his charitable intentions. As for Edmée's words, he frankly refused to repeat them; from which I gathered that their testimony seemed overwhelming. Thereupon I dragged myself out of bed, and stubbornly resisted all Marcasse's efforts to keep me back; I had the farmer's horse saddled and started off at a gallop. When I reached the château I looked like a ghost. I staggered into the drawing-room without meeting any one except Saint-Jean, who uttered a cry of terror on seeing me, and rushed off without answering my questions.
The drawing-room was empty. Edmée's embroidery frame, buried under the green cloth, which her hand, perchance, would never lift again, seemed to me like a bier under its pall. My uncle's big arm-chair was no
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