"She fell without a cry on the shoulders of the individual who embraced her."
With a movement more rapid than thought, De Brévannes opened the door, entered, aimed his gun between the shoulders of his victim, and fired. She fell without a cry on the shoulders of the individual who embraced her.
"And now it is your turn, beau prince!—a double shot!" exclaimed De Brévannes, turning the barrel of his gun to the head of the man who was trying to rise.
At the moment he was about to fire the door of the second chamber of the châlet opened violently behind him. Some one whom he did not see turned aside the gun, and prevented him from committing a second crime. De Brévannes, too, looked round, and saw—De Hansfeld!
At this moment the man who had been kneeling before the female rose up, and rushing on De Brévannes, exclaimed,—"Assassin!"
"De Morville!" cried De Brévannes, recognising him by the light of the fire, which threw out a momentary blaze.
"You have murdered Madame de Hansfeld, assassin!" repeated De Morville.
De Brévannes retreated a step or two, still holding his gun in his hand, his hair bristling on his head with affright. He then rushed towards the female whose body had slid upon the ground, but whose head still reclined on the sofa. He recognised Paula.
When he saw his fatal mistake, which rendered him guilty of an assassination which nothing could justify,—when he found De Morville with the woman by whom he believed himself passionately beloved, a furious vertigo seized upon De Brévannes, who burst into a fit of savage laughter, and disappeared. The prince and De Morville, overwhelmed by this horrid scene, did not attempt to oppose his departure. A few seconds afterwards they heard a report of fire-arms. De Brévannes had shot himself.
CHAPTER XLIX
EXPLANATIONS
It remains for us to explain the arrival of De Morville at the Château de Brévannes, and his presence, as well as that of Paula, in the châlet in which Bertha and Arnold had been a quarter of an hour before.
De Morville had learned from Madame de Lormoy, his aunt, that Paula had suddenly set out for Lorraine, in the depth of winter, to pass some time at the house of M. de Brévannes.
De Morville was completely ignorant that Paula was acquainted with De Brévannes, and this departure, so sudden and so extraordinary at this season, bespoke extreme intimacy; besides, he recalled some words, some allusions of Paula, during his last interview with her at the masked ball. He believed himself sacrificed, betrayed, or, rather, he could not find any plausible excuse for Paula's departure, and, in fact, was lost in conjecture. At the risk of compromising Paula by the improbability of the excuse for his journey, he set off for Lorraine, resolved on speaking to Madame de Hansfeld at all risks, so that he could clear up this mystery.
He reached De Brévannes about four o'clock in the afternoon, stopped in his carriage at the park gate, which, as we know, was close to the chalet, and sent his servant to Madame de Hansfeld with a note thus worded:—
"MADAME,—In consequence of a wager with my aunt, Madame de Lormoy, who, surprised at your departure and uneasy as to your health, was exceedingly anxious to know how you were, I have betted that I would go and inquire of you in person, and return instantly to Paris to satisfy Madame de Lormoy. If you should be so kind as to take any interest in my wager, I beg of you to oblige me with the desired information. Not having the honour of any acquaintance with M. de Brévannes, and having promised not even to leave my carriage, I await your reply at the park gate."
Paula received this note at the moment when she was returning from a walk. It was raining fast, and her first impulse was to take up a cloak that was at hand (it was that of Bertha, which she had left in the vestibule), and hasten to De Morville. In the midst of her extreme anguish she was desirous at all risks of sending De Morville away from a place in which so tragic an event was about to occur.
When he saw Paula, De Morville alighted from his carriage, entered the park, took her arm, and made her a thousand tender reproaches as to her sudden departure, entreating her to give him an explanation of so singular a decision.
Fearing to be met in the park, although the night was drawing on, Paula led De Morville to the pavilion in which Bertha and De Hansfeld had been shut up.
When Bertha heard the door open, from an involuntary impulse of alarm she took refuge in the inner room of the pavilion, whither Arnold followed her, and whence he could hear, in the hasty conversation that followed between De Morville and Paula, that the latter at least had never forgotten her duty as his wife.
De Morville, reassured by the most tender protestations of Paula, who urged his immediate departure, had just requested one kiss on his forehead, when De Brévannes, deceived by the dusk, by Bertha's cloak, and particularly by his conviction that his wife was in the châlet, shot the princess.
The next morning the shawl of Iris was found floating in one of the lakes.
It may be remembered that De Morville had said to Paula that a solemn oath forced him to avoid every occasion of seeing her. This was another of the machinations of Iris. Jealous of this new attachment of her mistress, the gipsy girl had gone to Madame de Morville, and represented to her a fearful picture of the fierce and suspicious jealousy of the Prince de Hansfeld, who was, she asserted, capable of destroying M. de Morville in some murderous stratagem, if he any longer carried on his liaison with the princess. Madame de Morville, alarmed at the dangers which threatened her son, made him take an oath, without revealing to him the cause of her alarm, to think no more of Madame de Hansfeld unless she became a widow. De Morville, although this oath cost him dear, saw his adored mother so agitated, so supplicating, and her health so frail, that he felt a refusal would be a terrible, perchance a mortal blow. He yielded—promised.
* * * * *
Eighteen months after these events, Bertha Raimond, princess de Hansfeld, went with Arnold and the old engraver to Germany, where the three took up their permanent abode.