Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/252

248 the night on which Monsieur Paul Moucée, alias Signor Mosquetti, told his story. She has remained secluded in her own apartments; and even Raymond de Marolles has scarce cared to break upon the solitude of this woman, in whom grief is so near akin to desperation.

"What will she do, now she knows all? Will she denounce me? If she does, I am prepared. If Blurosset, poor scientific fool, only plays his part faithfully, I am safe. But she will hardly reveal the truth. For her son's sake she will be silent. Oh, strange, inexplicable, and mysterious chance, that this fortune for which I have so deeply schemed, for which I have hazarded so much and worked so hard, should be my own—my own!—this woman a mere usurper, and I the rightful heir to the wealth of the De Cevennes! What is to be done? For the first time in my life I am at fault. Should I fly to the Marquis—tell him I am his son?—difficult to prove, now that old hag is dead; and even if I prove it—as I would move heaven and earth to do—what if she denounce me to her uncle, and he refuse to acknowledge the adventurer, the poisoner? I could soon silence her. But unfortunately she has been behind the scenes, and I fear she would scarcely accept a drop of water from the hands of her devoted husband. If I had any one to help me! But I have no one; no one that I can trust—no one in my power. Oh, Laurent Blurosset, for some of your mighty secrets, so that the very autumn wind blowing in at her window might seal the lips of my beautiful cousin for ever!"

Pleasant thoughts to be busy with this rainy autumn day; but such thoughts are by no means unfamiliar to the heart of Raymond de Marolles.

It is from a reverie such as this that he is aroused by the sound of carriage-wheels, and a loud knocking and ringing at the hall door. "Too early for morning callers. Who can it be at such an hour? Some one from the bank, perhaps?" He paces up and down the room rather anxiously, wondering who this unexpected visitor might be, when the groom of the chambers opens the door and announces, "The Marquis de Cevennes!"

"So, then," mutters Raymond, "she has played her first card—she has sent for her uncle. We shall have need of all our brains to-day. Now then, to meet my father face to face."

As he speaks, the Marquis enters.

Face to face—father and son. Sixty years of age—fair and pale, blue eyes, aquiline nose, and thin lips. Thirty years of age—fair and pale, blue eyes, aquiline nose, and thin lips again; and neither of the two faces to be trusted; not one look of truth, not one glance of benevolence, not one noble expression in either. Truly father and son—all the world over, father and son.