“Fox!” thought Corentin.  “Well, if those young men are shot,” he said, aloud; “it is because their friends have willed it—­I wash my hands of the affair.”

He had led the abbe to a part of the garden which lay in the moonlight, and as he said the last words he looked at him suddenly.  The priest was greatly distressed, but his manner was that of a man surprised and wholly ignorant.

“Understand this, monsieur l’abbe,” resumed Corentin; “the right of these young men to the estate of Gondreville will render them doubly criminal in the eyes of the middle class.  I’d like to see them put faith in God and not in his saints—­”

“Is there really a plot?” asked the abbe, simply.

“Base, odious, cowardly, and so contrary to the generous spirit of the nation,” replied Corentin, “that it will meet with universal opprobrium.”

“Well!  Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne is incapable of baseness,” cried the abbe.

“Monsieur l’abbe,” replied Corentin, “let me tell you this; there is for us (meaning you and me) proof positive of her guilt; but there is not enough for the law.  You see she took flight when we came; I sent the mayor to warn her.”

“Yes, but for one who is so anxious to save them, you followed rather closely on his heels,” said the abbe.

At those words the two men looked at each other, and all was said.  Each belonged to those profound anatomists of thought to whom a mere inflexion of the voice, a look, a word suffices to reveal a soul, just as the Indians track their enemies by signs invisible to European eyes.

“I expected to draw something out of him, and I have only betrayed myself,” thought Corentin.

“Ha! the sly rogue!” thought the priest.

Midnight rang from the old church clock just as Corentin and the abbe re-entered the salon.  The opening and shutting of doors and closets could be heard from the bedrooms above.  The gendarmes pulled open the beds; Peyrade, with the quick perception of a spy, handled and sounded everything.  Such desecration excited both fear and indignation among the faithful servants of the house, who still stood motionless about the salon.  Monsieur d’Hauteserre exchanged looks of commiseration with his wife and Mademoiselle Goujet.  A species of horrible curiosity kept every one on the qui vive.  Peyrade at length came down, holding in his hand a sandal-wood box which had probably been brought from China by Admiral de Simeuse.  This pretty casket was flat and about the size of a quarto volume.

Peyrade made a sign to Corentin and took him into the embrasure of a window.

“I’ve an idea!” he said, “that Michu, who was ready to pay Marion eight hundred thousand francs in gold for Gondreville, and who evidently meant to shoot Malin yesterday, is the man who is helping the Simeuse brothers.  His motive in threatening Marion and aiming at Malin must be the same.  I thought when I saw him that he was capable of ideas; evidently he has but one; he discovered what was going on and he must have come here to warn them.”