The Yellow Poppy. D. K. Broster

got hold of a book as usual. What have you been reading, Lucien?”

      “This is what he has been reading, Monsieur le Marquis!” cried the young Chevalier de la Vergne, snatching up du Boisfossé’s Virgil whence he had laid it, face downwards, on his chair. And holding the book with the hand which rested in the sling, of which he still had the use, he flourished his other arm at Roland, who was standing near, and began to declaim at him the famous lament out of the sixth book for the untimely dead Marcellus—

      “Heu miserande puer! si qua fata aspera rumpas,

       Tu Marcellus eris. Manibus date lilia plenis

       Purpureos——”

      He had got no further when, to his enormous surprise, the book was gently but firmly taken out of his hand.

      “Do not repeat those lines, boy, over anyone young, as you are doing at this moment,” said M. de Kersaint quietly looking, not at him, but at Roland. “I always think they are unlucky. . . .”

      And before the two young men had time to recover from their astonishment he had walked over to the other side of the attic, and joined his second in command at the little table to which the latter had returned.

      “I have some papers here, de Brencourt,” he said, sitting down, “which we could look at till the Abbé returns. Undoubtedly our attempt was premature . . . but unless we can get money it always will be premature. I have seen ‘Sincère’; he could join us with at least two hundred and fifty men if we could only provide arms for them.”

      “Always the same cry—insufficient arms and ammunition,” remarked his lieutenant rather bitterly. “How is anything considerable going to be done in Finistère if there is always this lack? And we could get both in plenty from England if we only had the money to buy them with.”

      “Exactly,” said the Marquis. “But where the money is to come from I do not know—beyond the not very generous subsidy which the British Government has promised me for the summer.—Well, we must take counsel with Georges when he comes. Now, look at these figures.”

      And he and the Comte de Brencourt were still bending over the papers which he had spread out on the table when the three young men, who had withdrawn themselves as far as possible from the conclave of their superiors, became aware that the priest was once more in their midst. He had entered among the shadows very quietly.

      “A la bonne heure, Monsieur l’Abbé!” said Roland de Céligny. “Monsieur le Marquis has arrived.” And he indicated the other side of the attic.

      “And have you been to the wedding at Mirabel?” enquired Artamène mischievously.

      The Abbé Chassin quickly turned on him with a frown, putting his finger to his lips. But he was too late; the words were out, and, though the culprit had moderated his voice, they had been heard. And Artamène, roused at once to interest and alertness by the priest’s gesture, was somehow aware of a sudden stiffening of M. de Kersaint’s whole figure, ere he said, turning round from the table, “What is this about . . . Mirabel?”

      The Abbé seeming in no great haste to answer, it was M. de Brencourt who replied, “The old lady whom the Abbé has been visiting next door is, apparently, suffering from delusions about Mirabel—that château of the Duc de Trélan’s near Paris. That is what M. de la Vergne means.”

      “This is interesting,” observed the Marquis de Kersaint, turning further round to look at the little priest, who had not advanced a step since Artamène’s jest. “And did you learn anything fresh about Mirabel, Abbé?”

      “Yes, I did, Monsieur le Marquis,” answered the priest rather shortly.

      “May we hear it?”

      M. Chassin was silent, and seemed to be considering this request. Artamène saw his face, and it was oddly perturbed.

      “We are not, I hope, inviting you to reveal the secrets of the confessional?”

      “No.”

      “Why may we not hear it, then?”

      “Because,” said the Abbé gravely, “it is more suited for your private ear, Monsieur le Marquis.”

      “Why?” asked M. de Brencourt, instantly, looking from one to the other, “why for M. de Kersaint’s private ear?”

      This question the Abbé seemed totally unable to answer, and after a second or two the Marquis de Kersaint said carelessly to his subordinate, “Because M. Chassin knows that I am a kinsman of the Duc de Trélan’s, I suppose.”

      “A kinsman of the Duc de Trélan’s—you!” exclaimed the Comte de Brencourt in obvious surprise. “A near kinsman?”

      “No, no, very distant,” replied his leader quickly. “And that is why I cannot conceive how a disclosure affecting his property can possibly be destined for my ear alone. So let us all hear it, if you please, Monsieur l’Abbé.”

      M. de Brencourt, still under the empire of surprise or some other emotion, continued to look at this kinsman of M. de Trélan’s very fixedly; so, from where he still stood near the door, did the priest. A better light would have revealed entreaty in his eyes.

      “Well, Monsieur l’Abbé, I am waiting!” said the Marquis de Kersaint rather haughtily, and in the fashion of a man who has never been used to that discipline.

      The Abbé set his lips obstinately. “It will keep well enough till to-morrow, Monsieur le Marquis.”

      “What, a communication from the dying? And who knows whether we shall all see to-morrow? Come, Abbé, I command you!—Roland, a chair here for M. Chassin.”

      Whether the priest could have stood out, had he willed, against that masterful voice and gesture, at any rate he did not.

      “Very well, Marquis,” said he, and Artamène, thrilled to the core, thought, “ ‘Tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin!’ That’s what he would really like to say, our Abbé!” And since their leader had intimated that the matter was not private after all, he applied himself to listen with all his ears. Roland, looking rather troubled, set a chair at the table for the priest and stood back.

      “You must know then, Monsieur le Marquis,” began the Abbé in a low voice, “that the old lady whom I have been visiting had been present at the festivities in 1771, when the . . . the young Duc de Trélan married his bride.”

      “That beautiful and most unfortunate lady!” commented M. de Brencourt under his breath.

      The Marquis glanced at him for the fraction of a second, and the priest went on, nervously rubbing his hands together, and rather pale:

      “It seems that there is a legend of a treasure hidden in Mirabel since the days of the Fronde, a treasure whose whereabouts no one has ever been able to discover. Since you are a kinsman of M. de Trélan’s, Monsieur le Marquis, it is possible that you have heard of the legend?”

      M. de Kersaint nodded thoughtfully. “I believe I have heard of it. Yes?”

      “The story appears to be true. The document describing the hiding-place of the treasure was stolen at the time—nearly a hundred and fifty years ago—and came into the possession of this old lady’s family, but in such a way that it was only recently rediscovered by the old lady herself.”

      “What an extraordinary tale! Well?”

      “Since then she had desired to give it to the Duc, but could not, as he was not in France. And in her delirium just now, fancying herself back at the wedding, she was talking so persistently of offering to the . . . the young couple, as a wedding gift, this paper, which would help them to what was after all their own, that M. Charlot——”

      “A wedding gift for de Trélan and his wife!” interposed the Comte de Brencourt with a laugh. “Bon Dieu, what irony, considering how their wedded life ended!”

      “Surely that need not concern us now, Monsieur de Brencourt!”