LITMIR.BIZ

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his escape bareheaded. He took a thousand louis away with him, and left his hat in exchange. The count is a brave man; and far from indulging in blame, every one applauded him the next day. Come, you have decided, I see—you will go; and to be still more safe, I will show you out through the servants’ hall, then no one can possibly see you.”

      Pascal had almost decided to yield to her entreaties; but this proposed retreat through the back-door was too revolting to his pride to be thought of for a moment. “I will never consent to such a thing,” he declared. “What would they think of me? Besides I owe them their revenge and I shall give it to them.”

      Neither Madame d’Argeles nor Pascal had noticed M. de Coralth, who in the meantime had stolen into the room on tiptoe, and had been listening to their conversation, concealed behind the folds of a heavy curtain. He now suddenly revealed his presence. “Ah! my dear friend,” he exclaimed, in a winning tone. “While I honor your scruples, I must say that I think madame is a hundred times right. If I were in your place, if I had won what you have won, I shouldn’t hesitate. Others might think what they pleased; you have the money, that is the main thing.”

      For the second time, the viscount’s intervention decided Pascal. “I shall remain,” he said, resolutely.

      But Madame d’Argeles laid her hand imploringly on his arm. “I entreat you, monsieur,” said she. “Go now, there is still time.”

      “Yes, go,” said the viscount, approvingly, “it would be a most excellent move. Retreat and save the cash.”

      These words were like the drop which makes the cup overflow. Crimson with anger and assailed by the strangest suspicions, Pascal turned from Madame d’Argeles and hastened into the dining-room. The conversation ceased entirely on his arrival there. He could not fail to understand that he had been the subject of it. A secret instinct warned him that all the men around him were his enemies—though he knew not why—and that they were plotting against him. He also perceived that his slightest movements were watched and commented upon. However he was a brave man; his conscience did not reproach him in the least, and he was one of those persons who, rather than wait for danger, provoke it.

      So, with an almost defiant air, he seated himself beside a young lady dressed in pink tulle, and began to laugh and chat with her. He possessed a ready wit, and what is even better, tact; and for a quarter of an hour astonished those around him by his brilliant sallies. Champagne was flowing freely; and he drank four or five glasses in quick succession. Was he really conscious of what he was doing and saying? He subsequently declared that he was not, that he acted under the influence of a sort of hallucination similar to that produced by the inhalation of carbonic gas.

      However, the guests did not linger long at the supper-table. “Let us go back!” cried the old gentleman, who had insisted upon the suspension of the game; “we are wasting a deal of precious time here!”

      Pascal rose with the others, and in his haste to enter the adjoining room he jostled two men who were talking together near the door. “So it is understood,” said one of them.

      “Yes, yes, leave it to me; I will act as executioner.”

      This word sent all Pascal’s blood bounding to his heart. “Who is to be executed?” he thought? “I am evidently to be the victim. But what does it all mean?”

      Meanwhile the players at the green table had changed places, and Pascal found himself seated not on Ferdinand’s right, but directly opposite him, and between two men about his own age—one of them being the person who had announced his intention of acting as executioner. All eyes were fixed upon the unfortunate advocate when it came his turn to deal. He staked two hundred louis, and lost them. There was a slight commotion round the table; and one of the players who had lost most heavily, remarked in an undertone: “Don’t look so hard at the gentleman—he won’t have any more luck.”

      As Pascal heard this ironical remark, uttered in a tone which made it as insulting as a blow, a gleam of light darted through his puzzled brain. He suspected at last, what any person less honest than himself would have long before understood. He thought of rising and demanding an apology; but he was stunned, almost overcome by the horrors of his situation. His ears tingled, and it seemed to him as if the beating of his heart were suspended.

      However the game proceeded; but no one paid any attention to it. The stakes were insignificant, and loss or gain drew no exclamation from any one. The attention of the entire party was concentrated on Pascal; and he, with despair in his heart, followed the movements of the cards, which were passing from hand to hand, and fast approaching him again. When they reached him the silence became breathless, menacing, even sinister. The ladies, and the guests who were not playing, approached and leaned over the table in evident anxiety. “My God!” thought Pascal, “my God, if I can only lose!”

      He was as pale as death; the perspiration trickled down from his hair upon his temples, and his hands trembled so much that he could scarcely hold the cards. “I will stake four thousand francs,” he faltered.

      “I take your bet,” answered a voice.

      Alas! the unfortunate fellow’s wish was not gratified; he won. Then in the midst of the wildest confusion, he exclaimed: “Here are eight thousand francs!”

      “Taken!”

      But as he began to deal the cards, his neighbor sprang up, seized him roughly by the hands and cried: “This time I’m sure of it—you are a thief!”

      With a bound, Pascal was on his feet. While his peril had been vague and undetermined, his energy had been paralyzed. But it was restored to him intact when his danger declared itself in all its horror. He pushed away the man who had caught his hands, with such violence that he sent him reeling under a sofa; then he stepped back and surveyed the excited throng with an air of menace and defiance. Useless! Seven or eight players sprang upon him and overpowered him, as if he had been the vilest criminal.

      Meanwhile, the executioner, as he had styled himself, had risen to his feet with his cravat untied, and his clothes in wild disorder. “Yes,” he said, addressing Pascal, “you are a thief! I saw you slip other cards among those which were handed to you.”

      “Wretch!” gasped Pascal.

      “I saw you—and I am going to prove it.” So saying he turned to the mistress of the house, who had dropped into an arm-chair, and imperiously asked, “How many packs have we used?”

      “Five.”

      “Then there ought to be two hundred and sixty cards upon the table.”

      Thereupon he counted them slowly and with particular care, and he found no fewer than three hundred and seven. “Well, scoundrel!” he cried; “are you still bold enough to deny it?”

      Pascal had no desire to deny it. He knew that words would weigh as nothing against this material, tangible, incontrovertible proof. Forty-seven cards had been fraudulently inserted among the others. Certainly not by him! But by whom? Still he, alone, had been the gainer through the deception.

      “You see that the coward will not even defend himself!” exclaimed one of the women.

      He did not deign to turn his head. What did the insult matter to him? He knew himself to be innocent, and yet he felt that he was sinking to the lowest depths of infamy—he beheld himself disgraced, branded, ruined. And realizing that he must meet facts with facts, he besought God to grant him an idea, an inspiration, that would unmask the real culprit.

      But another person came to his aid. With a boldness which no one would have expected on his part, M. de Coralth placed himself in front of Pascal, and in a voice which betokened more indignation than sorrow, he exclaimed: “This is a terrible mistake, gentlemen. Pascal Ferailleur is my friend; and his past vouches for his present. Go to the Palais de Justice, and make inquiries respecting his character there. They will tell you how utterly impossible it is that this man can be guilty of the ignoble act he is accused of.”

      No one made any reply. In the opinion of all his listeners, Ferdinand was simply fulfilling a duty which it would have been difficult

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