It was impossible to hear such questions calmly; and for the first time since my father's death, I wept like a child. Suzette herself now entered the saloon, and for a moment her eyes and mine met. Whether what I felt towards her was very visibly expressed in my glance or not, I cannot tell, but she turned extremely red, and casting down her eyes, caught the little girl by the arm and drew her rudely out of the room. In truth, I was not sorry to be spared more questions; and taking my hat, I walked forth into the park.
The morning was as warm and bright as that of the preceding day; and a feeling of painful curiosity impelled me directly towards the spot where the accident had occurred on the night before. I followed the exact path which I had pursued with Madame de Villardin, and as I turned from the lateral alley where we had met the Duke, into the short path which led to the broken bridge, I suddenly saw the form of Father Ferdinand standing at the very point to which I was directing my steps. He turned round as I approached, and without any apparent surprise beckoned me towards him. I walked on at once; and for two or three minutes after I had come up, we stood gazing together in silence upon all that remained of the wooden arch which had there spanned across the river, and which I myself had passed over on horseback not five days before. Very little of it was now to be seen, for full twelve feet of the centre had fallen into the river and had been carried away; but enough still remained attached to the piles at the sides to show, in some degree, the manner of the accident, though not the cause. The nails which had fixed the cross supports to the rafters had either given way or had been drawn out; and the two main beams which upheld the whole, having been deprived of everything that strengthened them, had broken at the side nearest the château, and, dragged down by their own weight from the piles on the other bank of the river, had fallen with the rest of the wood-work into the current, and been carried away.
A part, however, of one of them remained, as I have said, attached to the side where we stood; and after contemplating the whole for some time in silence, the Priest laid his hand upon my arm, as he saw my eyes fixed upon the broken beams, and he asked, in a tone half stern, half sorrowful, "Do you remark nothing there, my son?"