Part 24 (1/2)
”You know who I am?... And you were there just now?... You heard what I was saying ...?”
Renine, without hesitating or pausing in his speech, said:
”You are Rose Andree, the Happy Princess. We saw you on the films the other evening; and circ.u.mstances led us to set out in search of you ... to Le Havre, where you were abducted on the day when you were to have left for America, and to the forest of Brotonne, where you were imprisoned.”
She protested eagerly, with a forced laugh:
”What is all this? I have not been to Le Havre. I came straight here.
Abducted? Imprisoned? What nonsense!”
”Yes, imprisoned, in the same cave as the Happy Princess; and you broke off some branches to the right of the cave.”
”But how absurd! Who would have abducted me? I have no enemy.”
”There is a man in love with you: the one whom you were expecting just now.”
”Yes, my lover,” she said, proudly. ”Have I not the right to receive whom I like?”
”You have the right; you are a free agent. But the man who comes to see you every evening is wanted by the police. His name is Georges Dalbreque. He killed Bourguet the jeweller.”
The accusation made her start with indignation and she exclaimed:
”It's a lie! An infamous fabrication of the newspapers! Georges was in Paris on the night of the murder. He can prove it.”
”He stole a motor car and forty thousand francs in notes.”
She retorted vehemently:
”The motor-car was taken back by his friends and the notes will be restored. He never touched them. My leaving for America had made him lose his head.”
”Very well. I am quite willing to believe everything that you say. But the police may show less faith in these statements and less indulgence.”
She became suddenly uneasy and faltered:
”The police.... There's nothing to fear from them.... They won't know....”
”Where to find him? I succeeded, at all events. He's working as a woodcutter, in the forest of Brotonne.”
”Yes, but ... you ... that was an accident ... whereas the police....”
The words left her lips with the greatest difficulty. Her voice was trembling. And suddenly she rushed at Renine, stammering:
”He is arrested?... I am sure of it!... And you have come to tell me....
Arrested! Wounded! Dead perhaps?... Oh, please, please!...”
She had no strength left. All her pride, all the certainty of her great love gave way to an immense despair and she sobbed out.
”No, he's not dead, is he? No, I feel that he's not dead. Oh, sir, how unjust it all is! He's the gentlest man, the best that ever lived. He has changed my whole life. Everything is different since I began to love him.
And I love him so! I love him! I want to go to him. Take me to him. I want them to arrest me too. I love him.... I could not live without him....”