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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 42520
   :PG.Title: A Marriage Under the Terror
   :PG.Released: 2013-04-12
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Patricia Wentworth
   :DC.Title: A Marriage Under the Terror
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1910
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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A MARRIAGE UNDER THE TERROR
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      *A Marriage
      Under the Terror*

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      *By*
      *Patricia Wentworth*

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      G. P. Putnam's Sons
      New York and London
      Knickerbocker Press
      1910  

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      COPYRIGHT, 1910
      BY
      G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

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      Published, April, 1910
      Reprinted, May, 1910

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      The Knickerbocker Press, New York

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   Advertisement

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To *A Marriage Under the Terror* has been awarded
in England the first prize in the Melrose Novel
Competition, a competition that was not restricted to first
stories.  The distinguished literary reputation of the
three judges—Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, Miss Mary
Cholmondeley, and Mrs. Henry de la Pasture—was
a guaranty alike to the contestants and to the public
that the story selected as the winner would without
question be fully entitled to that distinction.  In
consequence, many authors of experience entered the
contest, with the result that the number of manuscripts
submitted was greater than that in the competition
previously conducted by Mr. Melrose.

Among such a number of good stories individual
taste must always play an important part in the
decision.  It is, therefore, no small tribute to the
transcendent interest of the winning novel that, though
the judges worked independently, each selected *A
Marriage Under the Terror* as the most distinctive
novel in the group.

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAPTER

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I.  `A Purloined Cipher`_
II.  `A Forced Entrance`_
III.  `Shut out by a Prison Wall`_
IV.  `The Terror Let Loose`_
V.  `A Carnival of Blood`_
VI.  `A Doubtful Safety`_
VII.  `The Inner Conflict`_
VIII.  `An Offer of Friendship`_
IX.  `The Old Ideal and the New`_
X.  `The Fate of a King`_
XI.  `The Irrevocable Vote`_
XII.  `Separation`_
XIII.  `Disturbing Insinuations`_
XIV.  `A Dangerous Acquaintance`_
XV.  `Sans Souci`_
XVI.  `An Unwelcome Visitor`_
XVII.  `Distressing News`_
XVIII.  `A Trial and a Wedding`_
XIX.  `The Barrier`_
XX.  `A Royalist Plot`_
XXI.  `A New Environment`_
XXII.  `At Home and Afield`_
XXIII.  `Return of Two Fugitives`_
XXIV.  `Burning of the Château`_
XXV.  `Escape of Two Madcaps`_
XXVI.  `A Dying Woman`_
XXVII.  `Betrayal`_
XXVIII.  `Inmates of the Prison`_
XXIX.  `Through Darkness to Light`_

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.. _`A PURLOINED CIPHER`:

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   A MARRIAGE UNDER THE TERROR

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   CHAPTER I

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   A PURLOINED CIPHER

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It was high noon on a mid-August morning of the year
1792, but Jeanne, the waiting-maid, had only just
set the coffee down on the small table within the ruelle of
Mme de Montargis' magnificent bed.  Great ladies did
not trouble themselves to rise too early in those days,
and a beauty who has been a beauty for twenty years was
not more anxious then than now to face the unflattering
freshness of the morning air.  Laure de Montargis stirred
in the shadow of her brocaded curtains, put out a white
hand for the cup, sipped from it, murmured that the
coffee was cold, and pushed it from her with a fretful
exclamation that made Jeanne frown as she drew the
tan-coloured curtains and let in the mid-day glare.
Madame had been up late, Madame had lost at faro, and
her servants would have to put up with Heaven alone
knew how many megrims in consequence.

"Madame suffers?" inquired Jeanne obsequiously,
but with pursed lips.

The lady closed her eyes.  Laying her head back
against the delicately embroidered pillows, she indicated
by a gesture that her sufferings might be taken for
granted.

"Madame has the migraine?" suggested the soft,
rather false-sounding voice.  "Madame will not receive?"

"Heavens! girl, how you pester me," said the
Marquise sharply.

Then, falling again to a languid tone, "Is there any
one there?"

Jeanne smiled with malicious, averted face as she
poured rose-water from a silver ewer into a Sévres bowl,
and watched it rise, dimpling, to the flower-wreathed
brim.

"There is M. le Vicomte as usual, Madame, and Mme
la Comtesse de Maillé, who, learning that Madame was
but now awakened, told me that she would wait whilst
I inquired if Madame would see her."

"Good Heavens! what an hour to come," said the
lady, with a peevish air.

"Madame la Comtesse seemed much moved.  One
would say something had occurred," said Jeanne.

The Marquise raised her head sharply.

"—And you stand chattering there?  Just Heaven!
The trial that it is to have an imbecile about one!
The glass quickly, and the rouge, and the lace for my
head.  No, not that rouge,—the new sort that Isidore
brought yesterday;—arrange these two curls,—now a
little powder.  Fool! what powder is this?"

"Madame's own," submitted Jeanne meekly.

The suffering lady raised herself and dealt the girl a
sounding box on the ear.

"Idiot! did I not tell you I had tired of the perfume,
and that in future the white lilac powder was the only
one I would use?  Did I not tell you?"

"Yes, Madame"—but there was a spark beneath the
waiting-maid's discreetly dropped lids.

The Marquise de Montargis sat bolt upright, and
contemplated her reflection in the wide silver mirror which
Jeanne was steadying.  Her passion had brought a
little flush to her cheeks, and she noted approvingly
that the colour became her.

"Put the rouge just here, and here, Jeanne," she
ordered, her anger subsiding;—then, with a fresh
outburst—"Imbécile, not so much!  One does not have the
complexion of a milkmaid when one is in bed with the
migraine; just a shade here now, a nuance.  That will
do; go and bring them in."

She drew a rose-coloured satin wrap about her, and
posed her head, in its cloud of delicate lace, carefully.
Her bed was as gorgeous as it well might be.  Long
curtains of rosy brocade fell about it, and a coverlid of
finest needlework, embroidered with bunches of red and
white roses on a white satin ground, was thrown across
it.  The carved pillars showed cupids pelting one another
with flowers plucked from the garlands that wreathed
their naked chubbiness.

Madame de Montargis herself had been a beauty for
twenty years, but a life of light pleasures, and a heart
incapable of experiencing more than a momentary
emotion had combined to leave her face as unlined and
almost as lovely as when Paris first proclaimed her its
reigning queen of beauty.

She was eminently satisfied with her own looks as she
turned languidly on her soft pillows to greet her friends.

Mme de Maillé bent and embraced her; M. le Vicomte
Sélincourt stooped and kissed her gracefully extended
hand.  Jeanne brought seats, and after a few polite
inquiries Mme de Maillé plunged into her news.

"Ma chère amie!" she exclaimed, "I come to tell you
the good news.  My daughter and her husband have
reached England in safety."  Tears filled her soft blue
eyes, and she raised them to the ceiling with a gesture
that would have been affected had her emotion been
less evidently sincere.

"Ah! chère Comtesse, a thousand felicitations!"

"My dear, I have been on thorns, I have not slept, I
have not eaten, I have wept rivers, I have said more
prayers in a month than my confessor has ever before
induced me to say in a year.  First I thought they would
be stopped at the barriers, and then—then I pictured to
myself a hundred misfortunes, a thousand inconveniences!
I saw my Adèle ill, fainting from the fatigues
of the road; I imagined assaults of brigands, shipwrecks,
storms,—in short, everything of the most unfortunate,—ah! my
dear friends, you do not know what a mother
suffers,—and now I have the happiness of
receiving a letter from my dearest Adèle,—she is well;
she is contented.  They have been received with
the greatest amiability, and, my friends, I am too
happy."

"And your happiness is that of your friends," bowed
the Vicomte.

Mme de Montargis' congratulations were polite, if a
trifle perfunctory.  The convenances demanded that
one should simulate an interest in the affairs of one's
acquaintances, but in reality, and at this hour of the
day, how they did bore one!  And Marie de Maillé,
with her soft airs, and that insufferable Adèle of hers,
whom she had always spoilt so abominably.  It was a
little too much!  One had affairs of one's own.  With
the fretful expression of half an hour before she drew
a letter from beneath her pillow.

"I too have news to impart," she said, with rather a
pinched smile.  "News that concerns you very closely,
M. le Vicomte," and she fixed her eyes on Sélincourt.

"That concerns me?"

"But yes, Monsieur, since what concerns Mademoiselle
your betrothed must concern you, and closely, as I
said."

"Mademoiselle my betrothed, Mlle de Rochambeau!"
he cried quickly.  "Is she then ill?"

Mme de Montargis smiled maliciously.

"Hark to the anxious lover!  But calm yourself, my
friend, she is certainly not ill, or she would not now be
on her way to Paris."

"To Paris?"

"That, Monsieur, is, I believe, her destination."

"What?  She is coming to Paris now?" inquired
Mme de Maillé with concern.

The Marquise shrugged her shoulders.

"It is very inconvenient, but what would you?" she
said lightly; "as you know, dear friend, she was betrothed
to M. le Vicomte when she was a child.  Then my good
cousin, the Comte de Rochambeau, takes it into his
virtuous head that this world, even in his rural retreat,
is no longer good enough for him, and follows Madame,
his equally virtuous wife, to Paradise, where they are no
doubt extremely happy.  Until yesterday I pictured
Mademoiselle almost as saintly and contented with the
holy Sisters of the Grace Dieu Convent, who have looked
after her for the last ten years or so.  Then comes this
letter; it seems there have been riots, a château burned,
an intendant or two murdered, and the good nuns take
advantage of the fact that the steward of Rochambeau
and his wife are making a journey to Paris to confide
Mademoiselle to their care, and mine.  It seems," she
concluded, with a little laugh, "that they think Paris is
safe, these good nuns."

"Poor child, poor child!" exclaimed Mme de Maillé
in a distressed voice; "can you not stop her, turn her
back?"

The Marquise laughed again.

"Dear friend, she is probably arriving at this minute.
The Sisters are women of energy."

"At least M. de Sélincourt is to be congratulated,"
said Mme de Maillé after a pause; "that is if Mademoiselle
resembles her parents.  I remember her mother
very well,—how charming, how spirituelle, how amiable!
I knew her for only too short a time, and yet, looking
back, it seems to me that I never had a friend I valued
more."

"My cousin De Rochambeau was crazy about her,"
reflected Mme de Montargis; "he might have married
anybody, and he chose an Irish girl without a sou.
It was the talk of Paris at the time.  He was the
handsomest man at Court."

"And Aileen Desmond the loveliest girl," put in
Mme de Maillé thoughtlessly; then, observing her
hostess's change of expression, she coloured, but
continued—"They were not so badly matched, and," with a little
sigh, "they were very happy.  It was a real romance."

Mme de Montargis' eyes flashed.  Twenty years ago
beautiful Aileen Desmond had been her rival at Court.
Now that for quite a dozen years gossip had coupled her
name with that of the Vicomte de Sélincourt, was Aileen
Desmond's daughter to take her mother's place in that
bygone rivalry?

Mme de Maillé, catching her glance, wondered how it
would fare with any defenceless girl who came between
Laure de Montargis and her lover.  She was still
wondering whilst she made her farewells.

When M. le Vicomte had bowed her out he came
moodily back to his place.

"It is very inconvenient, Madame," he said pettishly.

"You say so," returned the lady.

"Pardon, Madame, it was you who said so."

The Marquise laughed.  It was not a pleasant laugh.

"Of course it was I," she cried.  "Who else?  It is
hardly likely that M. le Vicomte finds a rich bride
inconvenient."

Sélincourt's face changed a little, but he waved the
words away.

"Mademoiselle is nothing to me," he asserted.
"Chère amie, do you suspect, do you doubt the faithful
heart which for years has beaten only for one beloved
object?"

The lady pouted, but her eyes ceased to sparkle.

"And that object?" she inquired, with a practised
glance.

"Angel of my life—need you ask?"

It was indeed unnecessary, since a very short acquaintance
with this fervid lover was sufficient to assure any
one that his devotion to himself was indeed his ruling
and unalterable passion; perhaps the Marquise was
aware of this, and was content to take the second, but
not the third place, in his affections.  She looked at
him coquettishly.

"Ah," she said, "you mean it now, now perhaps,
Monsieur, but when she comes, when you are married?"

"Eh, ma foi," and the Vicomte waved away his
prospective marriage vows as lightly as if they were
thistle-down, "one does not marry for love; the heart must be
free, not bound,—and where will the free heart turn
except to the magnet that has drawn it for so long?"

Madame extended a white, languid hand, and Monsieur
kissed it with more elegance than fervour.  As he
was raising his head she whispered sharply:

"The new cipher, have you got it?"

He bent lower, and kissed the fair hand again,
lingeringly.

"It is here, and I have drafted the letter we spoke of;
it must go this week."

"The Queen is well?"

"Well, but impatient for news.  There is an Austrian
medicine that she longs for."

"Chut!  Enough, one is never safe."

"Adieu, then, m'amie."

"Adieu, M. le Vicomte."

Monsieur took his leave with an exquisite bow, and
all the forms that elegance prescribed, and Madame lay
back against her pillows with closed eyes, and the frown
which she never permitted to appear in society.  Jeanne
threw a sharp glance at her as she returned from closing
the door upon Sélincourt.  Her ears had made her aware
of whispering, and now her eyes showed her a small
crumpled scrap of paper, just inside the ruelle of
Madame's bed.  A love-letter?  Perhaps, or perhaps
not.  In any case the correspondence of the mistress is
the perquisite of the maid, and as Jeanne came softly
to the bedside she covered the little twisted note with
a dexterous foot, and, bending to adjust the
rose-embroidered coverlid, secured and hid her prize.  In a
moment she had passed behind the heavy curtains and
was scanning it with a practised eye—an eye that saw
more than the innocent-seeming figures with which the
white paper was dotted.  Jeanne had seen ciphers
before, and a glance sufficed to show her the nature of
this one, for at the foot of the draft was a row of signs
and figures, mysterious no longer in the light of the key
that stood beneath them.  Apparently Jeanne knew
something about secret correspondence too, for there in
the shadow behind the curtain she nodded and smiled,
and once even shook her fist towards the unconscious
Marquise.  Next moment she was again in evidence,
and but for that paper tucked away inside her bodice she
would have found her morning a hard one.  Madame
wished this, Madame wished that; Madame would have
her forehead bathed, her feet rubbed, a thousand whims
complied with and a thousand fancies gratified.
Soft-voiced and deft, Jeanne moved incessantly to and fro on
those small, neatly-shod feet, which she sometimes
compared not uncomplacently with those of her mistress,
until, at last, at the latter end of all conceivable fancies
there came one for repose,—the rosy curtains were
drawn, and Jeanne was free.

Half an hour later a deftly-cloaked figure stood before
a table at which a dark-faced man wrote busily—a paper
was handed over, a password asked and given.

"Is it enough now?" asked Jeanne the waiting-maid.
And the dark-faced man answered, without looking up,
"It is enough—the cup is full."





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.. _`A FORCED ENTRANCE`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   A FORCED ENTRANCE

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Mademoiselle de Rochambeau had been
a week in Paris, but as yet she had tasted none
of its gaieties—for gaieties there were still, even in these
clouding days when the wind of destiny blew up the
storm of the Terror.  The King and Queen were
prisoners in the Temple, many of the noblesse had emigrated,
but what remained of the Court circles still met and
talked, laughed, gamed, and flirted, as if there were no
deluge to come.  To-day Mme de Montargis received,
and Mlle de Rochambeau, dressed by a Parisian milliner
for the first time, was to be presented to her cousin's
friends.

She had not even seen her betrothed as yet,—that
dim figure which she had contemplated for so many
years of cloistered monotony, until it had become the
model upon which her dreams and hopes were hung.
Now that the opening of the door might at any moment
reveal him in the flesh, the dreams wore suddenly thin,
and she was conscious of an overpowering suspense.
She hoped for so much, and all at once she was afraid.
Husbands, to be sure, were not romantic, not the least
in the world, and, according to the nuns, it would be the
height of impropriety to wish that they should be.
One married because it was the convenable thing to do,
but to fall in love,—fi donc, Mademoiselle, the idea!
Aline laughed, for she remembered Sister Séraphine's
face, all soft and shocked and wrinkled, and then in a
minute she was grave again.  Dreams may be forbidden,
but when one is nineteen they have a way of recurring,
and it is certain that Mlle de Rochambeau's heart beat
faster than Sister Séraphine would have approved, as
she stood by Mme de Montargis' gilded chair and
heard the servant announce "M. le Vicomte de
Sélincourt."

He kissed Madame's hand; and then hers.  A sensation
that was almost terror caught the colour from her
face.  Was this little, dark, bowing fop the dream hero?
His eyes were like a squirrel's—black, restless,
shallow—and his mouth displeased her.  Something about its
puckered outline made her recoil from the touch of it
upon her hand, and the Marquise, glancing at her, saw
all the young face pale and distressed.  She smiled
maliciously, and reflected on the folly of youth and the
kind connivance of Fate.

Sélincourt, for his part, was well enough satisfied.
Mademoiselle was too tall for his taste, it was true; her
beautifully shaped shoulders and bust too thin; but of
those dark grey Irish eyes there could be no two opinions,
and his quick glance approved her on the whole.  She
would play her part as Mme la Vicomtesse very creditably
when a little modish polish had softened her convent
stateliness, and for the rest he had no notion of being in
love with his bride.  It was long, in fact, since his small,
jaded heart had beaten the faster for any woman, and his
eyes left her face with a genuine indifference which did
not escape either woman.

"Mademoiselle, I felicitate Paris, and myself," he
said, with a formal bow.  Mademoiselle made him a
stately reverence, and the long-dreamed-of meeting was
over.

He turned at once to her cousin.

"You have written to our friend, Madame?"

"I wrote immediately, M. le Vicomte."

He lowered his voice.

"The paper with the cipher on it, did I give you my
copy as well as your own?"

"But no, mon ami.  Why, have you not got it?"

Sélincourt raised his shoulders.

"Certainly not, since I ask if you have it," he returned.

Madame's delicate chin lifted a little.

"And when did you find this out?" she asked.

"I had no occasion to use the code until yesterday,
and then..." the lift of his shoulders merged into a
decided shrug.

The Marquise turned away with a slight frown.  It
was annoying, but then the Vicomte was always careless,
and no doubt the paper would be found; it must be
somewhere, and her guests were assembling.

Of such stuff were the conspirators of those
days,—triflers, fops, and flirts; men who mislaid the papers
which meant life and death to them and to a hundred
more; women who chattered secrets in the hearing of
their lackeys and serving-maids, unable to realise that
these were listeners more dangerous than the chairs and
tables of their gaily furnished salons.  What wonder that
of all the aristocratic plots and counterplots of the
Revolution there was not one but perished immature?
Powdered nobles and painted dames, they played at
conspiracy as they played at love and hate, played
with gilded counters instead of sterling gold, and in the
end they paid the reckoning in blood.

Meanwhile Madame received.

The gay, softly lighted salon filled apace.  Day was
still warm outside, but the curtains were drawn, and
clusters of wax candles, set in glittering chandeliers,
threw their becoming light upon the bare shoulders of
the ladies and lent the rouge a more natural air.

Play was the order of the day, the one real passion
which held that world.  Life and death were trifles,
birth and marriage a jest, love and hate the flicker of
shadow and sunshine over shallow waters; but the
gambler could still feel joy of gain or rage of loss, and
the faro table demanded an earnestness which religion
was powerless to evoke.  Mlle de Rochambeau stood
behind her cousin's chair.  The scene fascinated, interested,
excited her.  The swiftly passing cards, the heaps
of gold, the flushed faces, the half-checked ejaculations,
all drew and enchained her attention; for this was the
great world, and these her future friends.

At first the game itself was a mystery, but by degrees
her quick wits grasped the principle, and she watched
with a breathless interest.  Madame de Montargis won
and won.  As the rouleaux of gold grew beside her, she
slid them into an embroidered bag, where her monogram
shone in pearls and silver and was wreathed by clustering
forget-me-nots.

Now she was not in such good luck.  She knit her
brows, set her teeth into the full lower lip, pouted
ominously,—and cheated.  Quite distinctly Mademoiselle
saw her change a card, and play on smilingly, as the
change brought fickle fortune to her side once more.
Aline de Rochambeau's hand went up to her throat with
a nervous gesture.  She wore around it a single string
of pearls—milk-white, and of great value.  In her
surprise and agitation she caught sharply at the necklet,
and in a moment the thread snapped, and the pearls
rolled here and there over the polished floor.  Aileen
Desmond had worn them last, a dozen years before, and
the silken string had had time to rot since then.

The players took no notice, but Mademoiselle de
Rochambeau gave a soft little cry and went down on her
knees to pick up her pearls.  The greater number were
to her hand, but a few had rolled away to the corner of
the room.  Mademoiselle put what she had picked up
into her muslin handkerchief, and slipped it into her
bosom.  Then she went timidly forward, casting her
looks here, there, and everywhere in search of the three
pearls which she still missed.  She found one under the
fold of a heavy curtain, and as she bent to pick it up she
heard voices in the alcove it screened, and caught her
own name.

"The little Rochambeau"—just like that.

It was a woman's voice, very clear, and a little shrill,
and then a man said:

"She is not bad—she has eyes, and a fine shape, and
a delicate skin.  Laure de Montargis will be green with
jealousy."

The woman laughed, a high, tinkling laugh, like the
trill of a guitar.

"The faithful Sélincourt will be straining at his leash,"
pursued the same voice.  "It is time he ranged himself;
and, after all, he has given her twelve years."

Another ripple of laughter.

"What a gift!  Heaven protect me from the like.
He is tedious enough for an hour, and twelve
years!—that poor Laure!"

"Chère Duchesse, she has permitted herself
distractions."  Here the voice dropped, but Aline caught names
and shuddered.  She rose, bewildered and confused, and
as she crossed the room and took her station near Madame
again, her eyes looked very dark amidst the pallour
of her face.  The hand that knotted the fine handkerchief
over the last of her pearls shook more than a little,
and at a sudden glance of Sélincourt's she looked down,
trembling in every limb.  M. de Sélincourt, her
betrothed, and Laure de Montargis, her cousin,—lovers.
But Laure was married.  M. de Montargis was with
the Princes,—his wife had spoken of him only that day.
Oh, kind saints, what wickedness was this?

Aline's brain was in a whirl, but through her shocked
bewilderment emerged a very definite horror of the
sallow-faced, shifty-eyed gentleman whom she had been
taught to regard as her future husband.  She shuddered
when she remembered that he had kissed her hand, and
furtively she rubbed the place, as if to efface a stain.  If
she had been less taken up with her own thoughts, she
would have noticed that whereas the room appeared to
have grown curiously quiet, there was a strange sound of
trampling, and a confused buzz of speech outside.
Suddenly, however, the door was burst open, and a
frightened lackey ran in, followed by another and another.

"Madame—a Commissioner—and a Guard—oh, Madame!"
stammered one and another.

Mme de Montargis raised her arched eyebrows and
stared at the foremost man in displeased silence.  He
fell back muttering incoherently, and she turned her
attention to the game once more.  But her guests
hesitated, and ceased to play, for behind the lackey
came a little procession of three, and with it some of the
desperate reality of life seemed to enter that salon of the
artificial.  A Commissioner of the Commune walked
first, with broad tri-coloured sash above an attire
sufficiently rough and disordered to bear witness to his
ardent patriotism.  His lank black hair hung unpowdered
to his shoulders, and his fat, sallow face wore an
expression of mingled dislike and complacency.  He
was followed by two blue-coated National Guards,
who looked curiously about them and smelled horribly
of garlic.

Madame's gaze dwelt on them with a surprised
resentment that did not at all distinguish between the
officer and his subordinates.

"Messieurs, this intrusion—" she began, and on the
instant the Commissioner was by her side.

"Ci-devant Marquise de Montargis, you are my
prisoner," and rough as his voice came his hand upon
her shoulder.  With a fashionable oath Sélincourt drew
his sword, and a woman screamed.

("It was the La Rivière," said Mme de Montargis
afterwards.  "I always knew she had no breeding.")

M. le Commissionaire had a fine dramatic sense.  He
experienced a most pleasing conviction of being in his
element as he signed to the nearest of his underlings,
and the man, without a word, drew back the heavy
crimson curtains which screened the window towards
the street.

The afternoon sun poured in, turning the candle-light
to a cheap tawdry yellow, and with it came a sound
which I suppose no one has yet heard unmoved—the
voice of an angry crowd.  Oaths flew, foul words rose,
and above the din sounded a shrill scream of—"The
Austrian spy, bring out the Austrian spy!" and with a
roar the crowd took up the word, "To the lantern, to the
lantern, to the lantern!"

There was no uncertainty about that voice, and at
that, and the Commissioner's meaning gesture, Sélincourt's
sword-arm dropped to his side again.  If Madame
turned pale her rouge hid it, and her manner continued
calm to the verge of indifference.  When the shouting
outside had died down a little she turned politely to the
man beside her.

"Monsieur, your hand incommodes me; if you would
have the kindness to remove it"; and under her eye,
and the faint, stinging sarcasm which flavoured its glance,
he coloured heavily and withdrew a pace.  Then he
produced a paper, drawing from its rustling folds fresh
confidence and a return to his official bearing.

"The ci-devant Vicomte de Sélincourt," he said in
loud, harsh tones; and, as Sélincourt made a movement,
"You, too, are arrested."

"But this is an outrage," stammered the Vicomte,
"an outrage, fellow, for which you shall suffer.  On
what charge—by what authority?"

The man shrugged fat shoulders across which lay the
tri-colour scarf.

"Charge of treasonable correspondence with Austria,"
he said shortly; "and as to authority, I am the Commune's
delegate.  But, ma foi, Citizen, there is authority
for you if you don't like mine," and, with a gesture
which he admired a good deal, he waved an arm towards
the street, where the clamour raged unchecked.  As he
spoke a stone came flying through the glass, and a sharp
splinter struck Sélincourt upon the cheek, drawing blood,
and an oath.

"You had best come with me before those outside
break in to ask why we delay," said the delegate
meaningly.

Madame de Montargis surveyed her guests.  She was
too well-bred to smile at their dismay, but something
of amusement, and something of scorn, lurked in her
hazel eyes.  Then, with her usual slow grace, she took
Sélincourt's arm, and walked towards the door, smiling,
nodding, curtsying, speaking here a few words and
there a mere farewell, whilst the Commissioner followed
awkwardly, spitting now and then to relieve his embarrassment,
and decidedly of the opinion that these
aristocrats built rooms far too long.

"Chère Adèle, 't is au revoir."

"Marquise, I cannot express my regrets."

"Nay, Duchesse, mine is the discourtesy, though a
most unintentional one.  I must rely upon the kindness
of my friends to forgive it me."

Aline de Rochambeau walked after her cousin, but
participated in none of the farewells.  She felt cold
and very bewildered; her only instinct to keep close to
the one protector she knew.  To stay behind never
occurred to her.  In the vestibule Madame de
Montargis paused.

"Dupont!" she called sharply, and the stout major-domo
of the establishment emerged from a group of
frightened servants.

"Madame—" Dupont's knees were shaking, but he
contrived a presentable bow.

Madame's eyes had lost their smile, but the scorn
remained.  She spoke aloud.

"Discharge those three fools who ran in just now, and
see that in future I have lackeys who know their place,"
and with that she walked on again.  All the way down
the grand staircase the noise of the mob pursued them.
In the vestibule more of the Guard waited with an
officer, and yet another Commissioner.  The three men
in authority conferred for a moment, and then the
Commissioners hurried their prisoners to a side door where
a fiacre stood waiting.  They passed out, and behind
them the door was shut and locked.  Then, for the first
time, Madame seemed to be aware of her cousin's presence.

"Aline—little fool!—go back—but on the instant—"

"Ma cousine——"

"Go back, I say.  Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, what folly!"

The girl put her hand on the door, tried it, and said,
in a low, shaking voice:

"But it is locked——"

"Decidedly, since those were my orders," growled
the second Commissioner.  "What's all this to-do?
Who 's this, Renard?  Send her back."

"But I ask you how?" demanded Renard, "since the
door is locked inside, and—Heavens, man, they are
coming this way!"

Lenoir uttered an imprecation.

"Here, get in, get in!" he shouted, pushing the girl
as he spoke.  "It is the less matter since the house and
all effects are to be sealed up.  Get in, I say, or the mob
will be down on us!"

Madame gave him a furious glance, and took her seat
beside her trembling cousin.  Sélincourt and Renard
followed.  Lenoir swung himself to the box-seat, and the
fiacre drove off noisily, the sound of its wheels on the
rough cobble-stones drowning by degrees the lessening
outcries of the furious crowd behind.





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.. _`SHUT OUT BY A PRISON WALL`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   SHUT OUT BY A PRISON WALL

.. vspace:: 2

The fiacre drew up at the gate of La Force.  M. le
Vicomte de Sélincourt got down, bowed politely,
and assisted Madame de Montargis to alight.  He then
gave his hand to her cousin, and the little party
entered the prison.  Mme la Marquise walked delicately,
with an exaggeration of that graceful, mincing step which
was considered so elegant by her admirers.  She fanned
herself, and raised a scented pomander ball to her nostrils.

"Fi donc!  What an air!" she observed with petulant disgust.

Renard of the dramatic soul shrugged his shoulders.
It was vexing not to be ready with a biting repartee,
but he was consoled by the conviction that a gesture
from him was worth more than many words from some
lesser soul.  His colleague Lenoir—a rough,
coarse-faced hulk—scowled fiercely, and growled out:

"Eh, Mme l'Aristocrate, it has been a good enough
air for many a poor devil of a patriot, as the citizen
gaoler here can tell you, and turn and turn about's fair
play."  And with that he spat contemptuously in
Madame's path, and scowled again as she lifted her
dainty petticoats a trifle higher but crossed the inner
threshold without so much as a glance in his direction.

Bault, the head gaoler of La Force, motioned the
prisoners into a dull room, used at this time as an office,
but devoted at a later date to a more sinister purpose,
for it was here in days to come—days whose shadow
already rested palpably upon the thick air—that the
hair of the condemned was cut, and their arms pinioned
for the last fatal journey which ended in the embraces
of Mme Guillotine.

Bault opened the great register with a clap of the
leaves that betokened impatience.  He was a nervous
man, and the times frightened him; he slept ill at nights,
and was irritable enough by day.

"Your names?" he demanded abruptly.

Mme de Montargis drew herself up and raised her
arched eyebrows, slightly, but quite perceptibly.

"I am the Marquise de Montargis, my good fellow,"
she observed, with something of indulgence in her tone.

"First name, or names?" pursued Citizen Bault, unmoved.

"Laure Marie Josèphe."

"And you?" turning without ceremony to the Vicomte.

"Jean Christophe de Sélincourt, at your service,
Monsieur.  Quelle comédie!" he added, turning to Mme
de Montargis, who permitted a slight, insolent smile
to lift her vermilion upper lip.  Meanwhile the
Commissioners were handing over their papers.

"Quite correct, Citizens."  Then, with a glance
around, "But what of this demoiselle?  There is no
mention of her that I can see."

Lenoir laughed and swore.

"Eh," he said, "she was all for coming, and I dare
say a whiff of the prison air, which the old Citoyenne
found so trying, will do her no harm."

Bault shook a doubtful head, and Renard threw himself
with zeal into the role of patriot, animated at once
by devotion to the principles of liberty, and loyalty to
law and order.

"No, no, Lenoir; no, no, my friend.  Everything
must be done in order.  The Citoyenne sees now what
comes of treason and plots.  Let her be warned in time,
or she will be coming back for good.  For this time there
is no accusation against her."

He spoke loudly, hand in vest, and felt himself every
inch a Roman; but his magniloquence was entirely lost
on Mademoiselle, for, with a cry of dismay, she caught
her cousin's hand.

"Oh, Messieurs, let me stop!  Madame is my guardian,
my place is with her!"

Mme de Montargis looked surprised, but she
interrupted the girl with energy.

"Silence then, Aline!  What should a young girl do
in La Force?  Fi donc, Mademoiselle!"—as the soft,
distressed murmur threatened to break out again,—"you
will do as I tell you.  Mme de Maillé will receive
you; go straight to her at the Hotel de Maillé.  Present
my apologies for not writing to her, and—

"Sacrebleu!" thundered Lenoir furiously, "this is not
Versailles, where a pack of wanton women may chatter
themselves hoarse.  Send the young one packing, Bault,
and lock these people up.  Are the Deputies of the
Commune to stand here till nightfall listening to a pair
of magpies?  Silence, I say, and march!  The old
woman and the young one, both of you march, march!"

He laid a large dirty hand on Mlle de Rochambeau's
shoulder as he spoke, and pushed her towards the door.
As she passed through it she saw her cousin delicately
accepting M. de Sélincourt's proffered arm, whilst her
left hand, flashing with its array of rings, still held the
sweet pomander to her face.  Next moment she was in
the street.

Her first thought was for the fiacre which had
conveyed them to the prison, but to her despair it had
disappeared, and there was no other vehicle in sight.

As she stood in hesitating bewilderment, she was aware
of the sound of approaching wheels, and looking up she
saw three carriages coming, one behind the other, at a
brisk pace.  There were three priests in the first, one
of them so old that all the solicitous assistance of the
two younger men was required to get him safely down
the high step and through the gate.  In the second were
two ladies, whose faces seemed vaguely familiar.  Was
it a year or only an hour ago that they had laughed and
jested at Mme de Montargis' brilliant gathering?  They
looked at her in the same half uncomprehending manner,
and passed on.  The last carriage bore the De Maillé
crest, but a National Guard occupied the box-seat in
place of the magnificent coachman Aline had seen the
day before, when Mme de Maillé had taken her old
friend's daughter for a drive through Paris.

The door of the chariot opened, and Mme De Maillé,
pale, almost fainting, was helped out.  She looked
neither to right nor left, and when Aline started forward
and would have spoken, the National Guard pushed her
roughly back.

"Go home, go home!" he said, not unkindly; "if you
are not arrested, thank the saints for it, for there are
precious few aristocrats as lucky to-day"; and Aline
shrank against the wall, dumb with perturbation and
dismay.

As in a dream she listened to the clang of the prison
gate, the roll of departing wheels, and it was only when
the last echo died away that the mist which hung about
her seemed to clear, and she realised that she was alone
in the deserted street.

Alone!  In all her nineteen years she had never been
really alone before.  As a child in her father's château,
as a girl in her aristocratic convent, she had always
been guarded, sheltered, guided, watched.  She had
certainly never walked a yard in the open street, or been
touched by a man's hand, as the Commissioner Lenoir
had touched her a few minutes since.  She felt her
shoulder burn through the thin muslin fichu that veiled
it so discreetly, and the blood ran up, under her delicate
skin, to the roots of the curling hair, where gold tints
showed here and there through the lightly sprinkled
powder.

It was still very hot, though so late in the afternoon,
and the sun, though near its setting, shot out a level ray
or two that seemed to make palpable the strong, brooding
heat of the evening.

Aline felt dazed, and so faint that she was glad to
support herself against the rough prison wall.  When
she could control her trembling thoughts a little, she
began to wonder what she should do.  She had only
been a week in Paris, she knew no one except her cousin,
the Vicomte, and Mme de Maillé, and they were in
prison—they and many, many more.  For the moment
these frowning walls stood to her for home, or all that
she possessed of home, and she was shut outside, in a
dreadful world, full of unknown dangers, peopled perhaps
with persons who would speak to her as Lenoir had done,
touch her even,—and at that she flushed again,
shuddered and looked wildly round.

A very fat woman was coming down the street,—the
fattest woman Mlle de Rochambeau had ever seen, yes,
fatter even than Sister Josèphe, she considered, with
that mechanical detachment of thought which is so
often the accompaniment of great mental distress.

She wore a striped petticoat and a gaily flowered
gown, the sleeves of which were rolled up to display a
pair of huge brown arms.  She had a very broad, sallow
face, and little pig's eyes sunk deep in rolls of crinkled
flesh.  Aline gazed at her, fascinated, and the woman
returned the look.  In truth, Mlle de Rochambeau, with
her rose-wreathed hair, her delicate muslin dress, her
fichu trimmed with the finest Valenciennes lace, her thin
stockings and modish white silk shoes, was a sufficiently
arresting figure, when one considered the hour and the
place.  The fat woman hesitated a moment, and in that
moment Mademoiselle spoke.

"Madame——"

It was the most hesitating essay at speech, but the
woman stopped and swung her immense body round
until she faced the girl.

"Eh bien, Ma'mselle," she said in a thick, drawling
voice.

Mademoiselle moistened her dry lips and tried again.

"Madame—I do not know—can you tell me,—oh! you
look kind, can you tell me what to do?"

"What to do, Ma'mselle?"

"Oh yes, Madame, and—and where to go?"

"Where to go, Ma'mselle?"

"Yes, Madame."

"But why, Ma'mselle?"

When anything terrible happens to the very young,
they are unable to realise that the whole world does
not know of their misfortune.  Thus to Mlle de
Rochambeau it appeared inconceivable that this woman should
be in ignorance of so important an event as the arrest
of the Marquise de Montargis and her friends.  It was
only when, to a puzzled expression, the woman added a
significant tap of the gnarled forefinger upon the heavy
forehead, and, with a shrug of voluminous shoulders,
prepared to pass on, that it dawned upon her that here
perhaps was help, and that it was slipping away from
her for want of a little explanation.

"Oh, Madame," she exclaimed desperately, "do listen
to me.  I am Mlle de Rochambeau, and it is only a
week since I came to Paris to be with my cousin, the
Marquise de Montargis, and now they have arrested
her, and I have nowhere to go."

A sound of voices came from behind the great gate of
the prison.

"Walk a little way with me," said the fat woman
abruptly.  "There will be more than you and me in this
conversation if we loiter here like this.  Continue, then,
Ma'mselle—you have nowhere to go?  But why not to
your cousin's hotel then?"

"My cousin would have had me do so, but the
Commissioners would not permit it.  Everything must be
sealed up they said, the servants all driven out, and no
one to come and go until they had finished their search
for treasonable papers.  My cousin is accused of
corresponding with Austria on behalf of the Queen," Mlle
de Rochambeau remarked innocently, but something
in her companion's change of expression convicted her
of her imprudence, and she was silent, colouring deeply.

The fat woman frowned.

"Madame, your cousin, had a large society; her friends
would protect you."

Aline shook her head.

"I don't know who they are, Madame.  Mme de
Maillé, to whom my cousin commended me, is also in
prison, and others too,—many others, the driver of the
carriage said.  I have nowhere to go, nowhere to go,
nowhere at all, Madame."

"Sainte Vierge!" exclaimed the fat woman.  The
ejaculation burst from her with great suddenness, and
she then closed her lips very tightly and walked on for
some moments in silence.

"Have you any money?" was her next contribution
to the conversation, and Mademoiselle started and put
her hand to her bosom.  Until this moment she had
forgotten it, but the embroidered bag containing her
cousin's winnings reposed there safely enough,
neighboured by her broken string of pearls.  She drew out
the bag now and showed it to her companion, who gave
a sort of grunt, and permitted a new crease, expressive
of satisfaction, to appear upon her broad countenance.

"Eh bien!" she exclaimed.  "All is easy.  Money
is a good key,—a very good key, Ma'mselle.  There are
very few doors it won't unlock, and mine is not
one,—besides the coincidence!  Figure to yourself that I was
but now on my way to ask my sister, who is the wife
of Bault, the head gaoler of La Force, whether she could
recommend me some respectable young woman who
required a lodging.  I did not look, it is true, for a noble
demoiselle,"—here the smooth voice took a tone which
caused Mademoiselle to glance up quickly, but all she
saw was a narrowing of the eyes above a huge impassive
smile, and the flow of words continued,—"la, la, it is all
one to me, if the money is safe.  There is nothing to be
done without money."

Mlle de Rochambeau drew a little away from her
companion.  She was unaccustomed to so familiar a
mode of speech, and it offended her.

The little, sharp eyes flashed upon her as she averted
her face, and the voice dropped back into its first tone.

"Well then, Ma'mselle, it is easily settled, and I need
not go to my sister at all to-night.  It grows dark so
early now, and I have no fancy for being abroad in the
dark; but one thing and another kept me, and I said to
myself, 'Put a thing off often enough, and you'll never
do it at all.'  My cousin Thérèse was with me, the
baggage, and she laughed; but I was a match for her.
'That's what you've done about marriage, Thérèse,' I
said, and out of the shop she bounced in as fine a temper
as you'd see any day.  She's a light thing, Thérèse is;
and, bless me, if I warned her once I warned her a
hundred times!  Always gadding abroad,—and her
ribbons—and her fal-lals—and the fine young men who were
ready to cut one another's throats for her sake!  No, no,
that's not the way to get a husband and settle oneself
in life.  Look at me.  Was I beautiful?  But certainly
not.  Had I a large dot?  Not at all.  But respectable,—Mon
Dieu, yes!  No one in all Paris can say that
Rosalie Leboeuf is not respectable; and when Madame,
your cousin, comes out of prison and hears you have been
under my roof, I tell you she will be satisfied, Ma'mselle.
No one has ever had a word to say against me.  I keep
my shop, and I pay my way, even though times are bad.
Regular money coming in is not to be despised, so I take
a lodger or two.  I have one now, a man.  A man did
I say?  An angel, a patriot, a true patriot; none of
your swearing, drinking, hiccupping, lolloping loafers,
who think if they consume enough strong liquor that the
reign of liberty will come floating down their throats of
itself.  He is a worker this one; sober and industrious
is our Citizen Dangeau, and a Deputy of the Commune,
too, no less."

Mlle de Rochambeau, slightly dazed by this flow of
conversation, felt a cold chill pass over her.
Commissioners of the Commune, Deputies of the Commune!
Was Paris full of them?  And till this morning she had
never heard of the Commune; it had always been the
King, the Court; and now, to her faint senses, this new
word brought a suggestion of fear, and she seemed for a
moment to catch a glimpse of a black curtain vibrating
as if to rise.  Behind it, what?  She reeled a little,
gasped, and caught at her companion's solid arm.  In a
moment it was round her.

"Courage, Ma'mselle, courage then!  See, we are
arrived.  It is better now, eh?"

Mademoiselle drew a long breath, and felt her feet
again.  They were in an alley crowded with small
third-rate shops, and so closely set were the houses that it
was almost dark in the narrow street.  Mme Leboeuf
led the way into one of the dim entrances, where a strong
mingled odour of cabbages, onions, and apples
proclaimed the nature of the commodities disposed of.

"Above, it will be light enough still," asserted Rosalie
between her panting breaths.  "This way, Ma'mselle;
one small step, turn to the left, and now up."

They ascended gradually into a sort of twilight, until
suddenly a sharp turn in the stair brought them on to a
landing with a fair-sized window.  Opposite was a gap
in the dingy line of houses, and through this gap shone
the strong red of the setting sun.

Mlle de Rochambeau looked out, first at the gorgeous
pageant in the sky, and then, curiously, at the strangeness
of her new surroundings.  She saw a tangle of mean
slums, streets nearly all gutter, from which rose sounds
of children squabbling, cats fighting, and men swearing.
Suddenly a woman shrieked, and she turned, terrified, to
realise that a man was passing them on his way down
the stair.

She caught a momentary but very vivid impression
of a tall figure carried easily, a small head covered with
short, dark, curling hair, and a pair of eyes so blue and
piercing that her own hung on them for an instant in
surprise before they fell in confusion.  The owner of the
eyes bowed slightly, but with courtesy, and passed on.
Madame Leboeuf was smiling and nodding.

"Good evening, Citizen Dangeau," she said, and
broke, as he passed, into renewed panegyrics.





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.. _`THE TERROR LET LOOSE`:

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   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium

   THE TERROR LET LOOSE

.. vspace:: 2

Jacques Dangeau was at this time about
eight-and-twenty years of age.  He was a successful
lawyer, and an ardent Republican, a friend of Danton,
and a fairly prominent member of the Cordeliers' Club.

Under a handsome, well-controlled exterior he
concealed an unbounded enthusiasm and a passionate
devotion to the cause of liberty.  When Dangeau spoke,
his section listened.  He carried always in his mind a
vision of the ideal State, in the service of which a race
should be trained from infancy to the civic virtues,
inflamed with a pure ambition to spend themselves for
humanity.  He saw mankind, shedding brutishness and
self, become sober, law-abiding, just;—in a word, he
possessed those qualities of vision and faith without
which neither prophet nor reformer can influence his
generation.  Dangeau had the gift of speech, and,
carried on a flood of burning words, some perception
of the ultimate Ideal would rise upon the hearts of even
the most degraded among his hearers.  For the moment
they too felt the glow of a reflected altruism, and
forgot that to them, and to their fellows, the Revolution
meant unpunished pillage, theft recognised, and murder
winked at.

As Dangeau walked through the darkening streets
his heart burned in him.  The events of the last month
had brought the ideal almost within grasp.  The grapes
of liberty had been trodden long enough in the vats of
oppression.  Now the long ferment was nearing its
close, and the time approached when the wine of life
should be free to all; and that glorious moment of
anticipation held no dread of intoxication or excess.  Truly
a patriot might be hopeful at this juncture.  Capet and
his family, sometime unapproachable, lay prisoners now,
in the firm grip of the Commune, and the possession of
such hostages enabled Paris to laugh at the threats of
foreign interference.  The proclamation of the Republic
was only a matter of weeks, and then—renewed visions
of a saturnian reign,—peace and plenty coupled with
the rigid virtues of old Rome,—rose glowingly before his
eyes.

As he entered the Temple gates he came down to
earth with a sigh.  He was on his way to take his turn
of a duty eminently distasteful to him,—that of
guarding the imprisoned King and his family.  As a patriot
he detested Louis the Tyrant, as a man he despised Louis
the man; but the spectacle of fallen greatness was
disagreeable to his really generous mind, and he was of
sufficiently gentle habits to revolt from the position of
intrusive familiarity into which he was forced with
regard to the women of the party.

The Tower of the Temple, where the unfortunate
Royal Family of France were at this time confined, was
to be reached only by traversing the Palace of the same
name, and crossing the court and garden where the work
of demolishing a mass of old houses, which encroached
too nearly upon Capet's prison, was still proceeding.
Patriotic ardour had seen a spy behind every window, a
concealed courtier in every niche; so the buildings were
doomed, and falling fast, whilst from the debris arose
a strong enclosing wall pierced by a couple of guarded
entries.  Broken masonry lay everywhere, and
Dangeau stumbled precariously as he made his way over
the rubble.  The workmen had been gone this half-hour,
but as he halted and called out, a man with a lantern
advanced and piloted him to the Tower.

The Commune was responsible for the prisoners of
the Temple, and the actual guarding of them was
delegated to eight of its Deputies.  These were on duty
for forty-eight hours at a stretch, and were relieved by
fours every twenty-four hours.

As Dangeau entered the Council-room, those whose
term of duty was finished were already leaving.  The
office of gaoler was an unpopular one, and most men,
having once satisfied their curiosity about the prisoners,
were very unwilling to approach them again.  The sight
of misfortune is only pleasing to a mind completely
debased, and most of these Deputies were worthy men
enough.

Dangeau was met almost on the threshold by a fair-haired,
eager-looking youth, who hailed him warmly as
Jacques, and, linking his arm in his, led him, unresisting,
into the deep embrasure of the window.

"What is it, Edmond?" inquired Dangeau, an unusually
attractive smile lighting up his rather grave features.
It was plain that this young man roused in him an
amused affection.

"Nothing," said Edmond aloud, "but it is so long
since I saw you.  Have you been dead, buried, or out of
Paris?"

"Since the arm you pinched just now is reasonably
solid flesh and blood, you may conclude that
during the past fortnight Paris has been rendered
inconsolable by my absence," said Dangeau, laughing
a little.

Edmond Cléry threw an imperceptible glance at his
fellow-Commissioners.  Two being always with the
prisoners, there remained four others, and of these a
couple were playing cards at the wine-stained table, and
two more lounged on the doorstep smoking a villanously
rank tobacco and talking loudly.

Certainly no one was in the least interested in the
conversation of Citizens Dangeau and Cléry.  Yet for
all that Edmond dropped his voice, not to a whisper, but
to that smooth monotone which hardly carries a yard,
and yet is distinctly audible to the person addressed.
In this voice he asked:

"You have not been to the Club?"

Dangeau shook his head.

"Nor seen Hébert, Marat, Jules Dupuis?"

An expression of distaste lifted Dangeau's finely cut lip.

"I have existed without that felicity," he observed,
with a slightly sarcastic inflexion.

"Then you have been told—have heard—nothing?"

"My dear Edmond, what mysteries are these?"

Edmond Cléry leaned a little closer, and dropped his
voice until it was a mere tenuous thread.

"They have decided on a massacre," he said.

"A massacre?"

"Yes, of the prisoners."

"Just Heaven!  No!"

"It is true.  Things have fallen from Hébert once or
twice.  He and Marat have been closeted for hours—the
devil's own alliance that—and the plan is of their
hatching.  Two days ago Hébert spoke at the Club.  It
was late, Danton was not there.  They say—"  Cléry
hesitated, and stole a glance at his companion's set
face,—"they say he wishes to know nothing."

"A lie," said Dangeau very quietly.

"I don't know.  There, Jacques, don't look at me
like that!  How can I tell?  I tell you my brain reels at
the thought of the thing."

"What did Hébert say?  He spoke?"

"Yes; said the people must be fleshed,—there was
not sufficient enthusiasm.  Paris as a whole was
quiescent, apathetic.  This must be changed, an elixir was
needed.  What?  Blood,—blood of traitors,—blood of
aristocrats,—oppressors of the people.  Bah!—you can
fancy the rest well enough."

"Did any one else speak?"

"Marat said the Jacobins were with us."

"Robespierre?"

"In it, of course, but would n't dirty those white hands
for the world," said Cléry, sneering.

"No one opposed it?"

"Oh, yes, but hooted down almost at once.  You know
Dupuis's bull voice?  It did his friends a good turn,
bellowing slackness, lack of patriotism, and so on.  I
wish you had been there."

Dangeau shook his head.

"I could have done nothing."

"Ah, but you could; there 's no one like you, Jacques.
Danton thunders, and Marat spits out venom, and
Hébert panders to the vile in us, but you really make
us see an ideal, and wish to be more worthy of it.  I said
to Barrassin, 'If only Dangeau were here we should be
spared this shame.'"

The boy's face flushed as he spoke, but Dangeau
looked down moodily.

"I could have done nothing," he repeated.  "If
they spoke as openly as that it is because their plans are
completed.  Did you hear any more?"

Edmond looked a little confused.

"Not there,—but—well, I was told,—a friend told
me,—it was for to-morrow," and he looked up to find
Dangeau's eyes fixed steadily on him.

"A friend, Edmond?  Who?  Thérèse?"

Cléry coloured hotly.

"Why not Thérèse, Jacques?"

"Oh, if you like to play with gunpowder it's no
business of mine, Edmond; but the girl is Hébert's mistress,
and as dangerous as the devil, that's all.  And so she
told you that?"

Cléry nodded, a trifle defiantly.

"To-morrow," said Dangeau slowly; "where?"

"At all the prisons.  One or two of the gaolers are
warned, but I do not believe they will be able to do
anything."

Dangeau was thinking hard.

"They sent me away on purpose," he said at last.

"Curse them!" said Cléry in a shaking voice.

Dangeau did not swear, but he nodded his head
as who should say Amen, and his face was bitter
hard.

"Is anything intended here?" he asked sharply.

"No, not from head-quarters; but Heaven knows what
may happen when the mob tastes blood."

Dangeau gave a short laugh.

"Why, Jacques?" said Cléry, surprised.

"Why, Edmond," repeated Dangeau sardonically,
"I was thinking that it would be a queer turn for Fate
to play if you and I were to die to-morrow, fighting in
defence of Capet against the people."

"You would do that?" asked Edmond.

"But naturally, my friend, since we are responsible
for him."

He had been leaning carelessly against the wall, but
as he spoke he straightened himself.

"Our friends upstairs will be getting impatient," he
said aloud.  "Who takes the night duty with me?"

Cléry was about to speak, but received a warning
pressure of the arm.  He was silent, and Legros, one of
the loungers, came forward.

Dangeau and he went out together.  Upstairs silence
reigned.  The two Commissioners on duty rose with
an air of relief, and passed out.  The light of a badly
trimmed oil-lamp showed that the little party of prisoners
were all present, and Dangeau saluted them with a
grave inclination of the head that was hardly a bow.
His companion, clumsily embarrassed, shuffled with his
feet, spat on the floor, and lounged to a seat.

The Queen raised her eyebrows at him, and, turning
slightly, smiled and nodded to Dangeau.  Mme
Elizabeth bowed abstractedly and turned again to the
chessboard which stood between her and her brother.  Mme
Royale curtsied, but the little Dauphin did not raise
his head from some childish game which occupied his
whole attention.  His mother, after waiting a moment,
called him to her and, laying one of her long delicate
hands on his petulantly twitching shoulder, observed
gently:

"Fi donc, my son; did you not see these gentlemen
enter?  Bid them good evening!"

The child tossed his head, but as his father's gaze met
him, he hung it down again, saying in a clear childish
voice, "Good evening, Citizens."

Mme Elizabeth's colour rose perceptibly at the form
of address, but the Queen smiled, and, giving the boy's
shoulder a little tap of dismissal, she turned to Dangeau.

"We forget our manners in this solitude, Monsieur,"
she said in her peculiarly soft and agreeable voice.  Then
after a pause, during which Dangeau, to his annoyance,
felt that his face was flushing, "It is Monsieur Dangeau,
is it not?"

"Citizen Dangeau, at your service."

Marie Antoinette laughed; the sound was pleasing but
disturbing.  "Oh, my good Monsieur, I am too old to
learn these new forms of address.  My son, you see, is
quicker"; the arch eyes clouded, the laugh dropped to
a sigh, then rippled back again into merriment.  "Only
figure to yourself, Monsieur, that I have had already to
learn one new language, for when I came to France as a
bride, all was strange—oh, but so strange—to me.  I
had hard work, I do assure you; and that good Mme de
Noailles was a famous task-mistress!"

"Should it be harder to learn simplicity?" said Dangeau,
a faint tinge of bitterness in his pleasant voice.

"Why, no, Monsieur," returned the Queen, "it should
not be.  My liking has always been for simplicity.
Good bread to eat, fresh water to drink, and a clean
white dress to wear,—with these things I could be very
well content.  But, alas! Monsieur, the last at least is
lacking us; and simplicity, though a cardinal virtue now,
does not of itself afford an occupation.  Pray, Monsieur
Dangeau, could you not ask that my sister and I should
be permitted the consolation of needlework?"

Dangeau coloured.

"The Commune has already decided against needle-work,"
he said rather curtly.

"But why then, Monsieur?"

"Because we all know that the needle may be used
instead of the pen, and that it is as easy to embroider
treason on a piece of stuff as to write it on paper," he
replied, with some annoyance.

The Queen gave a little light laugh.

"Oh, de grace!  Monsieur," she said, "my sister and I
are not so clever!  But may we not at least knit?
There is nothing treasonable in a few pins and a little
wool, is there, M. le Député?"

Dangeau shook his head doubtfully.  Consciousness
of the Queen's fascination rendered his outward aspect
austere, and even ungracious.

"I will ask the Council," was all he permitted himself
to say, but was thanked as charmingly as though he had
promised some great concession.  This did not diminish
his discomfort, and he was acutely conscious of Mme
Elizabeth's frown, and of a coarse grunt from Legros.

The prisoners did not keep late hours.  Punctually at
ten the King rose, embraced Mme Royale, kissed his
sister's forehead and the Queen's hand, and retired to
his own apartment, accompanied by M. le Dauphin, his
valet, and the Deputy Legros.  The Queen, Mme
Elizabeth, and Mme Royale busied themselves for a
moment with putting away the chessmen, and a book
or two that lay about.  They then proceeded to their
own quarters, which consisted of two small rooms
opening from an ante-chamber.  There Marie Antoinette
embraced her sister and daughter, and they separated
for the night.  Dangeau was obliged to enter each
apartment in turn, in order to satisfy himself that all
was in order, after which he locked both doors, and drew
a pallet-bed across that which led to the Queen's room.
Here he stretched himself, but it was long ere he slept,
and his thoughts were very bitter.  No Jacobin of them
all could go as far as he in Republican principles.  To
him the Republic was not only the best form of
government, but the only one under which the civic virtues
could flourish.  It was his faith, his ardent religion,
the inspiration of his life and labours, and it was this
faith which he was to see clouded, this religion defiled,
this inspiration befouled,—and at the hands of his
co-devotees, Hébert, Marat, and their crew.  They
worshipped at the same altar, but they brought to it
blood-stained hands, lives foul with license, and the smoking
blood of tortured sacrifices.

Paris let loose on the prisoners!  He shuddered at
the thought.  Once the tiger had tasted blood, who
could assuage his thirst?  There would be victims enough
and to spare.  Curled fops of the salons; scented
exquisites of the Court; indolent, luxurious priests;
smooth-skinned, bright-eyed women; children foolish and
unthinking.  He saw the sea of blood rise and rise till
it engulfed them all.

Strange that he should think of the girl he had seen
for an instant on Rosalie's stairway.  How uneasily
she had looked at him, and with what a rising colour.
How young she seemed, how delicately proud.  Her face
stayed with him as he sank into a sleep, vexed by
prophetic dreams.

The next morning passed uneasily.  It was a hot,
cloudless day, and the small room in which the prisoners
were confined became very oppressive.  The King
spent a part of the time in superintending the education
of his son, and whilst thus engaged certainly appeared
to greater advantage than at any other time.  The
child was wayward, wilful, and hard to teach; but the
father's patience appeared inexhaustible, and his method
of imparting information was not only painstaking, but
attractive.

The Princesses read or conversed.  Presently the
King got up and began pacing the room.  It was a
habit of his, and, after glancing at him once or twice,
Mme Elizabeth rose and joined him.  Now and then
they stood at the window and looked out.  The last few
houses to be demolished were falling fast, and the King
amused himself by speculating on the direction likely to
be taken by each crashing mass of masonry.  He made
little wagers with his sister, was chagrined when he lost,
and pleased out of all reason when he won.  Dangeau's
lip curled a little as he watched the trivial scene, and
perhaps the Queen read his thought, for she said
smilingly:

"Prisoners learn to take pleasure in small things,
Monsieur"; and Dangeau bit his lip.  The quick
intuition, the arch glance, confused him.

"All things are comparative," continued Marie
Antoinette.  "When I had many amusements and
occupations, I would not have turned my head to remark
what now constitutes an event in my monotonous day.
Yesterday a workman hurt his foot, and I assure you,
Monsieur, that we all regarded him with as much
interest as if he had been a dear friend.  Trifles have ceased
to be trifles, and soon I shall look out for a mouse or a
spider to tame, as I have heard of prisoners doing."

"I cannot imagine even the loneliest of unfortunates
caring for a spider," said Dangeau, with a smile.

"No, Monsieur, nor I," returned the Queen.  She
seemed about to speak again, and, indeed, her lips had
already opened, when, above the crash of the falling
masonry, there came the heavy boom of a gun.  Dangeau
started up.  It came again, and yet a third time.

"It is the alarm," said Legros stolidly.

Immediately there was a confused noise of voices,
shouting, footsteps.  Dangeau and his colleague pressed
forward to the window.  The workmen were throwing
down their tools; here a group stood talking,
gesticulating, there half a dozen were running,—all was
confusion.

Louis had recoiled from the window.  His great face
was a sickly yellow, and the sweat stood in large beads
upon the skin.

"Is there danger?  What is it?" he stammered, and
caught at the table for support.

Mme Royale sat still, her long, mournful features
steadily composed.  She neither moved nor cried out,
but Dangeau saw the thin, unchildish shoulders tremble.
Mme Elizabeth embraced first her brother, and then her
sister, demanding protection for them in agitated accents.
Only the Queen appeared unmoved.  She had risen and,
passing her arm through that of her husband, rapidly
addressed a few words to him in an undertone.  Inaudible
to others, they had an immediate effect upon
him, for he retired to the back of the room, sat down,
and drew his little son upon his knee.

The Queen then turned to the Commissioners.

"What is it, Messieurs?" she asked.  "Is there
danger?"

"I don't know," answered Legros bluntly.

Dangeau threw her a reassuring glance.

"It is a street riot, I think," he said calmly.  "It is
probably of no consequence; and in any case, Madame,
we are here to protect you, with our lives if necessary.
You may be perfectly assured of that."

The Queen thanked him with an earnest look and
resumed her seat.  The noise outside decreased, and
presently the routine of the day fell heavily about them
once more.

If Dangeau were disturbed in mind his face showed
nothing, and if he found the day of an interminable
length he did not say so.  When the evening brought
him relief, he found the Council in considerable
excitement.  The prisons had been raided, "hundreds killed,"
said one.  "Bah! only one or two, nothing to speak of,"
maintained another.

Edmond Cléry looked agitated.

"It is only the beginning," he whispered, as he passed
his friend.  He was on duty with the prisoners, so
further conversation was impossible; but Dangeau's
sleep in the Council-room was not much sounder than
that of the night before in the Queen's ante-chamber.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CARNIVAL OF BLOOD`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium

   A CARNIVAL OF BLOOD

.. vspace:: 2

September the third dawned heavy with murky
clouds, out of which climbed a sun all red, like a
ball of fire.  The mists of the autumn morning caught
the tinge, but no omens could add to the tense foreboding
which wrapt the city.  It needed no signs in the
sky to prophesy a day of terror.

At La Force a crowded court-yard held those of the
prisoners who had escaped the previous day's massacre.
They had been driven from their cells at dawn, and,
after an hour or two of strained anticipation, had
gathered into their accustomed coteries.  Mme de
Lamballe, who had heard the mob howling for her
blood, sat placidly beautiful.  Now and then she spoke
to a friend, but for the most part she kept her eyes on the
tiny copy of *The Imitation of Christ* which was found
in her blood-stained clothes later on in that frightful
day.  Others, less devout, or less alarmed, were
gossipping, chattering, even laughing, or playing cards,
as if La Force were Versailles, and the hands on the
clock of Time had never moved for the last four years.

Mme de Maillé was gone.  Her hacked corpse still lay
in its pool of blood, her dead eyes stared unburied at
the lowering sky; but Mme de Montargis sat in her
old place, her attendant Vicomte at her side.  If her
face was pale the rouge hid it, and at least her smile
was as ready, her voice as careless, as ever.  Bault,
the gaoler, stared as he passed her.

"These aristocrats!" he muttered; "any honest
woman would be half-dead of fright after yesterday, and
what to-day will bring, Heaven knows!  I myself, mille
diables!  I myself, I shake, my hand trembles, I am in
the devil's own sweat,—and there she sits, that light
woman, and laughs!"

As he passed into his own room, his wife caught him
by the arm——

"Jean, Jean, mon Dieu, Jean!  They are coming
back!"  He strained his ears, listening, gripping his
wife, as she gripped him.

"It is true," he murmured hoarsely.

A sullen, heavy drone burdened the air.  It was like
the sound of the rising tide on a day of storm,—far off,
but nearer, every moment nearer, nearer, until it
drowned the thumping of the frightened pulses which
beat so loudly at his ears.  A buzz as of infernal
bees,—its component parts, laughter of hell, audible lust of
cruelty, just retribution clamorous, and the cry of
innocent blood shed long ago.  All this, blent with the
howl of the beast who scents blood, made up a sound
so awful, that it was small wonder that the sweat
dripped heavily from the brow of Bault, the gaoler, or
that his wife clung to his arm, praying him to think of
their children.

To his honour be it said that he risked his life, and
more than his life, to save some two hundred of his
prisoners, but for the rest—their doom was sealed.

It had been written long ago, in letters of cumulative
anguish, when the father of Mme de Montargis had torn
that shrieking peasant bride from her husband's side on
their marriage-day, when her grandfather hanged at his
gates the starving wretches who clamoured over-loudly
for release from the gabelle,—hardly a noble family in
France but had some such record at their backs, signs
in an alphabet that was to spell "The Terror."  At the
hands of the fathers was sown the seed of hate, and the
doom of the reaping came fast upon their children.

King Mob was at his revels, but he must needs play
a ghastly comedy with the victims.  There should be a
trial for each, a really side-splitting affair.  "A table,
Bault," and up with the judges, three of them, wrapped
in a drunken dignity, a chair apiece, a bonnet rouge on
each august head; and prisoner after prisoner hurried
up, and interrogated.  A look was enough for some, a
word too much for others.  Here and there a lucky
answer drew applause, and won a life, but for the most
part came the sentence, "A l'Abbaye,"—and straightway
off went the condemned to the inviolable cloisters of
death.

Mme de Montargis came up trippingly upon the
Vicomte de Sélincourt's arm.  Their names were
enough—both stank in the nostrils of the crowd.  There
was a shout of "Austrians, Austrian spies! take them
away, take them out!"

"To the Abbaye," bawled the reverend judges, and
Madame made them a little curtsey.  This was better
than she expected.

"I thank you, Messieurs," she murmured; and then
to the Vicomte: "Mon ami, we are in luck.  The Abbaye
can hardly be more incommodious than La Force."

"Quelle comédie!" responded Sélincourt, with a
shrug, and with that the door before them opened.

Let us give them the credit of their qualities.  That
open door gave straight into hell,—an inferno of tossing
pikes which dripped with blood, dripped to a pavement
red and slippery as a shambles, whilst a hoarse, wild-beast
roar, full of oaths, and lust, and savage violence,
broke upon their ears.

If Mme de Montargis hesitated, it was for the
hundredth part of a second only.  Then she raised her
scent-ball carelessly to her nostrils, and the hand that
held it did not shake.

"Tiens, mon ami," she said, "your comedy becomes
tragedy.  I never thought it my rôle, but it seems le bon
Dieu thinks otherwise"; and with that she stepped
daintily out on to the reeking cobble-stones.  One is
glad to think that the first pike-thrust was well aimed,
and that it was an unconscious form that went down to
the mire and blood below.

The beautiful Lamballe was just behind.  They say
she knew she was going to her death.  There is a tale
of a dream—God! what a dream!—an augury, what
not?  Heaven knows no great degree of prescience was
required.  She turned very pale, her eyes on her book
until the last moment, when she slipped it into her
pocket, with one of those unconscious movements
dictated by a brain too numb to work otherwise than by
habit.  She met the horror with dilated eyes,—eyes that
glazed to a faint before death struck her.  Nature was
merciful, and death a boon, for over her corpse began a
carnival of lust and blood so hideous that imagination
staggers at it, and history veils it in shuddering
generalities.  No need to dwell upon its details.

What concerns us is that, having her head upon a
pike, and the mutilated body trailing by the heels, the
whole mad mob set off to the Temple, to show Marie
Antoinette her friend, and to serve the Queen as they
had served the Princess.

It was between twelve and one in the day that news
of what was passing came to the Temple.  It was the
fat Butin who brought it.  He came in on the Council
panting, gasping, dripping with the moisture of heat and
fear.  All his broad, scarlet face was drawn, and his
lips, under the bristling moustache, were pale—a thing
very strange and arresting.  It was plain that he had
news of the first importance, but it was some time before
he could speak.  When his voice came it was all out of
key, and his whole portly body quivered with the effort
to control it.

"Hell is out, Citizens!" were his first connected words.
Then—"Oh! they are mad, they are mad, and they
are just behind me.  Close the gates quickly, or they 'll
be through!"

A bewildered group emitted Dangeau.

"What has happened, Citizen?" he asked steadily.
"A riot?  Like yesterday?"

"Like yesterday?  No, ma foi, Citizen!  Yesterday
was child's play, a mere nothing; to-day they murder
every one, and when they have murdered they tear in
pieces.  They have assassinated the Lamballe, and they
are coming here for Capet's wife!"

"How many?" asked Dangeau sharply.

"How do I know!" and fat Butin wrung his
hands.  "The streets are full of them, leaping, and
howling, and shouting like devils.  Does the Citizen
suppose I stayed to count them?—I, the father of a
family!"

The Citizen supposed nothing so unlikely; in fact, his
questions asked, he was not thinking of Butin at all.
His brain was working quickly, clearly.  Already he
saw his course marked out, and, as a consequence, he
assumed that command of the situation which is always
ceded to the man who sees his way before him whilst
his fellows walk befogged.

He sat at the table and wrote two notes, despatching
one to the President of the Legislative Council and the
other to the General Council of the Commune.

Then he announced their contents, speaking briefly
and with complete assurance.

"I have written asking for six members of the
Assembly and six of the Council, popular men who will
assist us to control the mob.  We shall, of course, defend
the prisoners with our lives if necessary, but there must
be no fighting unless as a last recourse.  Where is the
captain of the Guard?"

The officer came forward, saluting.

"You have—how many men?"

"Four hundred, Citizen."

"You can answer for them—their discipline, their
nerve?"

"With my life!"

"Very well, attend to your instructions.  Both sides
of the great gates are to be opened."

"Opened, Citizen?" stammered the captain, whilst a
murmur of dissatisfaction ran through the room.

Dangeau's brows made a dangerous straight line.

"Opened," he repeated emphatically.  "Between
the outer and inner doors you will draw up a double line
of your steadiest men—unarmed."

It was only the officer's look which protested this
time, but it quailed before Dangeau's glance of steel.

"You will place a strong guard beyond, out of sight.
These men will be fully armed.  All corridors, passages,
and courts leading to the Tower will be held in sufficient
force, but not a man is to make so much as a threatening
gesture without orders.  You will be so good as to carry
out these instructions without delay.  I shall join you at
the gate."

The captain swung away, and Dangeau turned to his
colleagues.

"I propose to try to bring the people to reason," he
said; "if they will hear me, I will speak to them.  If
not—we can only die.  The prisoners are a sacred trust,
but to have to use violence in defending them would be
fatal in the extreme, and every means must be taken to
obviate the necessity.  Legros, you are a popular man,
and you, Meunier; meet the mob, fraternise with the
leaders, promote a feeling of confidence.  They must be
led to feel that it is our patriotism which denies them,
and not any sentiment of sympathy with tyrants."

There was a low murmur of applause as Dangeau
concluded.  He had acted so rapidly that these slow-thinking
bourgeois had scarcely grasped the necessity for
action before his plan was laid before them, finished to
the last detail.

As he left the room, he had a last order to give:
"Tell Cléry and Renault to keep the prisoners away
from the windows"; and with that was on his way to
the gates.

His instructions were being carried out expeditiously
enough.  The great gates stood wide, and he passed
towards them through a double row of the National
Guard.  A sharp, scrutinising glance appeared to satisfy
him.  These were what he wanted—men who could
face a mob, unarmed, as coolly as if they were on parade;
men who would obey orders without thought or question.
They stood, a solid embodiment of law and order,
discipline, and decorum.

Dangeau took off his tri-coloured sash, borrowed a
couple more, knotted them together, suspended them
across the unbarred entrance, and, having requisitioned
a chair, sat down on it, and awaited the arrival of the
mob.

He had not long to wait.

They came, heralded by a dull, hideous roar: no longer
the tiger howl of the unfleshed beast, but the devilish
mirth of the same beast, full fed, but not yet sated, and
of mood wanton as well as murderous.  It would still
kill, but with a refinement of cruelty.  The pike-thrust
was not enough.  It would not suffice them to butcher
the Queen,—she must first kiss the livid lips of their
other victim; she must be stripped, insulted, dragged
alive through the Paris streets.

In this new mood they had stopped on their way to
the Temple, broken into the trembling Clermont's shop,
and forced that skilful barber to dress the Princesse de
Lamballe's exquisite hair and rouge the bloodless cheeks.

The hair was piled high, and wreathed with roses;
roses bloomed in the dead cheeks, beneath the lifeless
violet of the loveliest eyes in France.  Only the mouth
drooped livid, ghastly, drained of delight.  Clermont had
done what he could.  Even terror could not rob his
fingers of their skill, but, as he muttered to himself, with
shaking lips, "Am I, le bon Dieu, to make the dead
live?"  Rouge and rose-wreathed hair made Death
more ghastly still, but the mob was satisfied, and tossing
him a diamond buckle for his pains, they swung off
again, the head before them.

It was thus that Dangeau saw them come.  For a
moment the blood ran thick and turgid through his
brain, the next it cleared, and, though his heart beat fast,
it was with the greatest appearance of calm that he
mounted his improvised rostrum, and held up his hand
in a gesture demanding silence.

The mob swept on unheeding; nearer, nearer, right
on without check or pause, to the fragile ribbon that
alone barred their way.  Had Dangeau changed colour,
had his eye flickered, or that outstretched arm quivered
ever so little, they would have been on him—over him,
and another massacre would have been written on the
stained pages of History.

But Dangeau stood motionless; an unbearable tension
held him rigid.  His steady eyes—like steel with the
sun on it—fixed the leader of the mob;—fixed him, held
him, stopped him.  A bare yard from the gates, the
man who held the head aloft slackened speed,
hesitated, and finally came to a standstill so close to
Dangeau that a little of the scented powder in the
Princess's hair fell down and whitened the sleeve of
his outstretched arm.  Like sheep, the silly crowd
behind checked as their leader checked, and stopped as
he had stopped.

Dangeau and he stood looking at one another.  The
man was a giant, black and hairy, stripped to the waist
and a-reek with blood.  Under a villainous, low brow
his hot, small eyes winked and glared, shifted, and fell at
last before the steadier gaze.

Dangeau turned a little, beckoning with his hand, and
there was a momentary lull in the chorus of shouts, oaths,
and obscene songs.

"What do you want?" he shouted.

The mob renewed its wild-beast howl.

Dangeau beckoned again.

"Let your leader speak," he called; and as the ruffian
with the head was pleased to second his suggestion, he
obtained a second interval in the storm.

"What do you want?" he asked again, and received
this time an answer, couched in language too explicit to
be transcribed, but the substance of which was that the
Capet woman was to kiss her precious friend.

"And then?" Dangeau's speech fell cold and clear
as ice upon the heated words of the demagogue.

"And then, aha! then—"  She was to be taught
what the people's vengeance meant.  For how many
years had they toiled that she might have her sport?
Now she should make sport for them, and then they
would tear her limb from limb, show her traitorous
heart to Paris, where she had lived so wantonly; burn
her vile body to ashes.

Again that high, cool voice——

"And then?"

The ruffian scowled, spat viciously, and swore.

"Then, then—a thousand devils!  What did the
Citizen mean with his 'and then'?  He supposed that
they should go home until there was another tyrant
to kill."

"And then—shall I tell you what then?—will you
hear me, Dangeau?  Some of you know me," and his
eye lit on a wizened creature who danced horribly about
the headless corpse.

"Antoine, have you forgotten the February of two
years ago?"

The ghastly object ceased its strange rhythmic
movements, stared a moment, and broke into voluble speech.

"'T is a patriot, this Dangeau, I say it—I whom he
saved from prison.  Listen to him.  He has good,
strong words.  Tell us then, Citizen, tell us what
we're to do," and he capered nearer, catching at
Dangeau's chair with fingers horribly smeared.

Silence fell, and, after a very slight pause, Dangeau
leaned forward and began to speak in a low, confidential
tone.

"All here are patriots, are they not?  Not a traitor
amongst you, citizens all, proved and true.  You have
struck down the enemies of France, and now you ask
what next?"  His voice rose suddenly and thrilled over
the vast concourse.

"Citizens of Paris, the whole world looks to you—the
nations of Europe stand waiting.  They look to
France because it is the cradle of the new religion,—the
religion of humanity.  France, revolted from under
the hand of her tyrants, rises to give the law to all
future generations.  With us is the rising sun, whose
beams shed liberty, justice, equality; and on this
splendid dawn all eyes are fixed."

"They shall see us crush the tyrants!" bellowed the
crowd.

"They shall see it," repeated Dangeau, and the words
rang like an oath.  "Europe shall see it, the World
shall see it.  But, friends, shall we not give them a
spectacle worthy of their attention, read them a lesson
that shall stand on the page of History for ever?  Shall
we not take a little time in devising how this lesson
may be most plainly taught?  Shall a few patriots,—earnest,
sincere, passionately devoted to liberty it is
true, but unauthorised by France, or by the duly delegated
authority of the people,—shall a few weak men, in
an outburst of virtuous indignation putting a tyrant to
death, shall this impress the waiting peoples?  Will they
not say, 'France did not will it—the people did not
will it—it was the work of a few'?  Will they not say
this?  On the other side, see—a crowded hall, the hall
of the people's delegates.  They judge and they
condemn, and Justice draws her sword.  In the eye of the
day, in the face of the world, before the whole people,
there falls the tyrant's head.  Then would not Europe
tremble?  Then would not thrones based on iniquity
totter, tyrants fall, and the universal reign of liberty
begin?"

The crowd swayed, hypnotised by the rolling voice,
for Dangeau had the tones that thrill, that stir, that
soothe.  We do not always understand the fame of
dead-and-gone orators.  Their periods leave us cold, their
arguments do not move us, their words seem no more
eloquent than another's; and yet, in their day, these men
swept a whirlwind of emotion, colour, life, conviction,
into their hearers' hearts.  Theirs was the gift of
temperament and tone.  As the inspired musician plays
upon his instrument, so they on theirs,—that oldest and
most sensitive instruments of all, the human heart.

Dangeau's voice pealed out above the throng.  He
took the biggest words, the most extravagant phrases,
the cheapest catchwords of the day, and blended them
with the magic of his voice to an irresistible spell.
Suddenly he changed his key.  The mob was listening,
their attention gained,—he could give them something
more than a vague magniloquence.

"Frenchmen!" he said earnestly, "do we oppose you
with arms?  Do we threaten, do we resist you?  No,
for I am most certain that there is not a man among
you who would be turned from his purpose by
fear,—Frenchmen do not feel so mean a sentiment,—but is
there a Frenchman here who is not always ready to
listen to the sacred dictates of reason?  Hear me then."

Somewhere inside Dangeau's brain a little mocking
devil laughed, but the crowd applauded,—a fine appetite
for flattery characterises the monster Demos,—it was
pleased, and through its thousand mouths it clamorously
demanded more.

"I stand here to make that appeal to your reason,
which I am assured cannot fail.  First, I would point
out to you that these prisoners are not only prisoners of
ours, but hostages of France.  Look at our frontiers:
England threatens from the sea, Austria and Spain from
the south; but their hands are tied, Citizens, their hands
are tied.  They can threaten and bluster, but they dare
take no steps which would lead to the sacrifice of the
tyrant and his brood.  Wait a little, my friends; wait a
little until our brave Dumouriez has won us a battle
or two, and then the day of justice may dawn."

He paused a moment, and, gauging his audience,
cried quickly:

"Vive Dumouriez!  Vive l'armée!"

Half a dozen voices echoed him at first, but in a
minute the cry was taken up on the outskirts of the crowd,
and came rolling to the front in a storm of cheers.

Dangeau let it have its course, then motioned for
silence, and got it.

"France owes much to Dumouriez," he said.  "We
are a nation of soldiers, and we can appreciate his work.
Let us support him, then, and do nothing to embarrass
him in his absence.  Let him first drive the invaders of
France back across her insulted frontiers, and then—"  He
was interrupted by a howl of applause, but he got the
word again directly.

"Citizens of Paris," he called, "your good name is in
your own keeping.  They are some who would be glad
to see it lost.  There are some, I will name no names,
who are jealous of the pre-eminence of our beautiful
Paris.  They would be glad of an excuse for moving the
seat of government.  I name no names, I make no
accusations, but I know what I know."

"Name them, name them!—down with the traitors!"
shouted the mob.

"They are those who bid you destroy the prisoners,"
returned Dangeau boldly.  "They are those who urge
you to lay violent hands on a trust which is sacred,
because we have received it from the hands of the people.
They are those who wish to represent you to the world
as incapable of governing, blind with passion.  Shall
this be said?"

A shout of denial went up.

"Citizens of Paris, you have elected us your
representatives.  You have reposed in us this sacred trust.
If we abuse it, you have your remedy.  The Nation
which elected can degrade; the men who have placed
in us their confidence can withdraw that confidence; but
whilst we hold it, we will deserve it, and will die in its
defence."

The crowd shook with applause, but there were
dissenting voices.  One or two of the leaders showed dark,
ominous faces; the huge man with the head scowled
deepest, he seemed about to speak, and eyed Dangeau's
chair as if he contemplated annexing it.

None knew better than Dangeau how fickle a thing is
a crowd's verdict, or how easily it might yet turn against
him.  He laid his hand on the grimy shoulder beside him.

"To show the confidence that we repose in you, I
suggest that this citizen, and five of his colleagues, shall
be admitted into the garden; you shall march round the
Tower if you will, and it will be seen that it is only
your own patriotism and self-control that safeguards
the prisoners, and not any force opposed to you."

This proposal aroused great enthusiasm.  Dangeau,
who was fully aware of the risks he ran in making it,
hastily whispered to two of the Commissioners sent him
in response to his appeal to the Commune, bidding them
remain at the gate and keep the mob in a good temper,
whilst he himself accompanied the ringleaders.

It was a strange and horrifying procession that took
its way through palace rooms which had looked upon
many scenes of vice but none so awful as this.

Dangeau, a guard or two, six filthy, reeking creatures,
drawn from the lowest slums, steeped in wickedness
as in blood; the exquisite head, lovely to the last, set on
a dripping pike; the white, insulted body, stripped to
the dust and mire of Paris; the frightful odour of gore
diffused by all, made up a total effect of horror
unparalleled in any age.

To the last day of Dangeau's life it remained a
recurrent nightmare.  He was young, he had lived a
clean, honest life, he had respected women, nourished
his soul on ideals, and now——

At the time he felt nothing,—neither disgust nor
horror, nausea nor shame.  It was afterwards that two
things contended for possession of his being—sheer
physical sickness, and a torment of outraged sensibility.
He had vowed himself to the service of Humanity, and
he had seen Humanity desecrate its own altar, offering
upon it a shameful and bloody sacrifice.  Just now it
was fortunate that feeling was in abeyance, and that
it was the brain in Dangeau, and not the conscience,
that held sway.  All of him, except that lucid brain,
lay torpid, stunned, asleep; but in its cells thought
flashed on thought, seizing here an impulse, there an
instinct, bending them to the will, absorbing them in
its designs.

All the way the butchers talked.  One of them
fancied himself a wit.  Fortunately for posterity his
jests have not been preserved.  Another gave a detailed
and succinct account of every person murdered by him.
A third sang filthy songs.  Dangeau's brain ordered
him not to offend these bestial companions, and in
obedience to it he nodded, questioned, appeared to commend.

Arrived at the garden, the whole company took up
the chorus of the song, and began to march round the
Tower, holding the head aloft and calling on the Queen
to come and look at it.

Those of the workmen who still remained at their
posts came gaping forward—some of them joined the
tune; the excitement rose, and cries of "The Austrian,
the Austrian; give us the Austrian!" began to be heard.

Within there was a dead silence.  The little group
of prisoners were huddled together at the farther side
of the room.  Mme Elizabeth held her rosary, and her
pale lips moved incessantly.  One of the Commissioners,
Renault, a strong, heavy-featured man, stood
impassively by the window watching the progress of events,
whilst Cléry, his eager young face flushed with
excitement, was trying to keep up a conversation with the
Princesses in order to prevent the terrifying voices from
without reaching their ears.  Although no one could be
ignorant of what was passing, they seconded his attempts
bravely.  Marie Antoinette was the most successful.
She preserved that social instinct which covers
under an airy web the grimmest and most evident facts.
Death was such a fact,—vastly impolite, entirely to
be ignored; and so the Queen conversed smilingly, even
whilst the mother's eye rested in anguish upon her
children.

Suddenly even her composure was shattered.

There was a loud shout of "Come out, Austrian!
Look, Austrian!" and a shape appeared at the
window—a head, omen of imminent tragedy.  That head had
shared the Queen's pillow, those drawn lips had smiled
for her, those heavy lids closed over eyes whose beauty
to her had been the lovely, frank affection which beamed
from them.  Thus, in this fearful shape, came the
intimation of that friendship's close.

Cléry sprang up with a cry of "Don't look!" but he
was too late.  With a hoarse sound, half cry, half
strained release of breath too frantically held, the Queen
shrank back.

In that moment her face went grey and hollow, her
death-mask showed prophetic, but after that one
movement, that one cry, she sat quite still and made no
sound.  Mme Royale had fainted, and Elizabeth knelt
beside her shuddering and weeping.

Renault's great shoulders blocked the window, and
even as he pressed forward the head was withdrawn.

Down below a second crisis was being fought through.
Dangeau began to feel the strain of that scene by the
Temple gates; his nervous energy was diminished, and
the dreadful six were straining at the leash.  They
howled for the Austrian, they bellowed forth threats,
they vociferated.  One of them caught Dangeau by
the shoulder and levelled a red pike at his head; but for
a moment the steely composure of the eyes held him,
and the next a friendly hand struck down the weapon.

"It is Dangeau, our Dangeau, the people's friend!"
shouted his rescuer, a powerful workman.  "I am of his
section," and he squeezed him in a grimy embrace.

Dangeau, released, sprang on a heap of rubble, and
made his final effort.

"Hé, mes braves!" he cried, "it is growing late; half
Paris knows your deeds, it is true, but how many are
still ignorant?  Will you let darkness overtake you
with your trophies yet undisplayed?  Away, let the
other quarters hear of your triumphs.  Vaunt them
before the Palais Royal, and let the Tuileries, so often
defiled by the Tyrant's presence, be purified now by
these relics, evidence of the people's power!"

As he ceased, his words were taken up by all present.

"To the Palais Royal!  To the Tuileries!" they howled.

Dangeau, not only saved, but a hero,—so fickle a
thing is the mood of the sovereign people,—was cheered,
embraced, carried across the court-yard, and with
difficulty permitted to remain behind; whilst the whole
mob, singing, shouting, and dancing, took its frenzied
course towards the royal palaces.





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.. _`A DOUBTFUL SAFETY`:

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   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium

   A DOUBTFUL SAFETY

.. vspace:: 2

Mlle de Rochambeau knelt by her open
window.  She had been praying, but for a long
time her lips had not moved, and now it seemed as if
their numbness had invaded her heart, and lay there
deadening fear, emotion, sorrow, all,—all except that
heavy beating, to which she listened half unconsciously,
as though it were a sound from some world which hardly
concerned her.

She had not left the little room at all.  On the first
day she had been put off civilly enough.

"Rest a little, Ma'mselle, rest a little; to-morrow I
will make my sister a little visit, and you shall
accompany me.  To-day I am busy, and without me you
would not be admitted to the prison."

But when to-morrow came, there were at first black
looks, then impatient words, and finally the key turned
in the lock and hours of terrifying solitude.  The one
small window overlooked a dark and squalid street where
the refuse of the neighbourhood festered.  It was noisy
and malodorous, and she sickened at every sense.  The
sounds, the smells, the sight of the wizened, wicked-looking
children, who fought, and swore, and scrabbled
in the noisome gutter below, all added to her growing
apprehension.

Closing the cracked pane she retreated to the farther
corner of the attic, and again slow hours went by.

About noon a distant roar startled her to the window
once more.  Nothing was to be seen, but the sound
came again, and yet again; increasing each time in
violence, and becoming at last a heavy, continuous
boom.

There is scarcely anything so immediately terrifying
as that dull mutter of a city in tumult.  Mlle de
Rochambeau's smooth years supplied her with no
experience by which to measure the threat of that far
uproar, and yet every nerve in her body thrilled to it
and cried danger!  It was then that she began to pray.
The afternoon wore on, and she grew faint as well as
frightened.  Rosalie Leboeuf had set coffee and coarse
bread before her in the early morning, but that was now
many hours since.

The sun was near to setting when a loud shouting
arose in the street below, shocking her from the dizzy
quiescence into which she had fallen.  Looking out, she
saw that the children had scattered, pushed aside by
rapidly gathering groups of their elders.  Every house
appeared to be disgorging an incredible number of people,
and in their midst swayed a very large man, extremely
drunk, and half naked.  Such clothes as he possessed
appeared to have been torn and rent in a most amazing
manner, and scraps of them depended fantastically
from naked shoulders and battered belt.  His swarthy
head retained its bonnet rouge, whose original colour
was dyed, here and there, a deeper and more portentous
crimson.

He waved great windmills of arms, and talked loudly
in a thick guttural voice, adding strange gestures and
stranger oaths.  A sort of fascination kept
Mademoiselle's eyes riveted upon him, and presently she began to
catch words—phrases.

"Dear holy Virgin!  what was he
saying?—Impossible—impossible, impossible!"  And then quite
suddenly her shocked brain yielded to the truth.  There
had been a massacre of the prisoners—this man had
been there; he was recounting his exploits, boasting
of the number he had killed.

"Mother most merciful, protect! save!—"  But
the ghastly catalogue ran on.  They say that in those
days many claimed the murderer's praise who had never
acted the murderer's part.  Men with hands innocent
of blood daubed themselves horribly, and went home
boasting of unimaginable horrors, guiltless the while
as the children who hung eagerly on the tale.  There
was a madness abroad,—a fearful, epidemic madness
that seized its thousands, and time and again set Paris
reeking like a shambles and laughing wantonly in the
face of outraged Europe.

Whether Jean Michel were innocent or not, his
conversation was equally horrifying.  Mlle de Rochambeau
listened to it, shaking.  The things said were
inconceivable, and mercifully some of them passed over her
innocence leaving it unbruised, save for a gradually
accumulating weight of horror.

Suddenly she caught her cousin's name—"that
wanton, the Montargis, damned Austrian spy," the man
called her, and added Sélincourt's name to hers with
a foul oath.

"I struck them, I!  My pike was the first!" he
shouted.  Then drawing a scrap of reeking linen from
his belt he waved it aloft, proclaiming, "This is her
blood!" and looked around him for applause.

It was too much.  A gasp broke from the girl's rigid
lips, a damp dew from her brow.  The twilight quivered—turned
to darkness—then broke into a million sparks
of flame, and a merciful oblivion overtook her.

Jean Michel may be left to the tender mercies of
Louison his wife, a little woman and a venomous, having
that command over her husband which one sees in the
small wives of large men.  Having haled him home, she
burned his precious trophy, and poured much cold
water on his hot and muddled head.  Afterwards she
gave her tongue free course, and we may consider that
Jean Michel had his deserts.

When Mlle de Rochambeau shuddered back again to
consciousness, the room was dark.  Outside, quiet
reigned, and a beautiful blue dusk, just tinged with
starlight.  She dragged herself up into a half-sitting,
half-kneeling position, and looked long and tremblingly
into the tranquil depths above.  All was peace and a
cool purity, after the red horror of the day.  The lights
of the city looked friendly; they spoke of homes, of
children, of decent comfort and ordered lives, and over
all brooded the great sapphire glooms of the darkening
ether and the lights of the houses of God.  A strange
calm slid into her soul—the hour held her—life and death
were twin points in a fathomless, endless stretch of
peace eternal.

The flesh no longer enchained her—weak with shock
and fasting, it released its grip, and the freer spirit
peered forth into the immensities.

Aline's body lay motionless, but her soul floated in
a calm sea of light.

How long this lasted she did not know, but presently
she became aware that she was listening to some rather
distant sound.  It came slowly nearer, and resolved
itself into a man's heavy step, which mounted the narrow
stairway, and paused ominously beside her door.  Some
of the strange calm from which she came still wrapped
her, but her heart began to beat piteously.  Her
hearing seemed preternaturally acute, and she was
aware of a pause, of one or two quickly drawn
breaths, and then the dull sound of a groan—such
a sound as may come from a man utterly weary and
forespent when he imagines himself alone.  The
pause, the groan were over even as she listened, and
the door opposite hers closed sharply upon Jacques
Dangeau.

A throb of relief shook her back into normal humanity.
It was, of course, the man she had seen on the stairs, and
all at once she was conscious of immense fatigue; her
head sank lower and lower, the darkness closed upon
her, and she slept.

Rosalie stumbled over her an hour later, and took
fright when the girl just stirred, and no more.  She had
intended her young aristocrat to pass a chastening day.
Fasting was good for the soul, it rendered young girls
amenable, and Rosalie wished to come to terms with this
friendless but not unmoneyed demoiselle whom chance,
luck, or some other god of her rather mixed beliefs had
thrown her way.  She had not, however, meant to leave
the girl quite so long without food, but sallying out in
quest of news she had been detained by her trembling
sister, whose timid soul saw no safety anywhere in all
red, raving Paris.

Rosalie set down her light and bent over the sleeping
girl.  A shrewd glance showed her a drawn fatigue of
feature and a collapsed discomfort of attitude beyond
anything she was prepared for.

"Tett, tett!" she grunted; "that Michel—could she
have heard him?  It is certainly possible.  Well, well,
there will be no talk to-night, that 's a sure thing.
Here, Ma'mselle!  Ma'mselle!"

Mlle de Rochambeau opened her eyes, but only to
close them again.  The lids hung half shut, and under
them lay heavy violet streaks.  This was slumber that
was half a swoon, and with a shrug of her vast shoulders,
and a mental objurgation of the tenderness of aristocrats,
Rosalie set herself to getting a cup of strong hot broth
down the girl's throat.

Mademoiselle moaned and gasped, but when a sip or
two had been chokingly swallowed, she raised her head
and took the warm drink eagerly.  She was about to
sink back again into her old position when she felt
strong arms about her, and capable hands loosened her
dress and pulled off shoes and stockings.  With a sigh
of content, she felt herself laid down on the bed, her
head touched a pillow, some one covered her, and she
fell again upon a deep, deep, dreamless sleep.

It was high noon before she awoke, and then it was
to a sense of bewildered fatigue beyond anything she
had ever experienced.  She lay quite still, and watched
the little patch of sky which showed above the roofs of
the houses opposite.  It was very blue, and small
glittering clouds raced quickly across it.  Slowly,
slowly as she looked, yesterday came back to her, but
with a strange remoteness, as if it had all happened too
long ago to weep for.  A great shock takes us out of
time and space.  Emotion crystallises and ceases to
flow along its accustomed channels.  Aline de
Rochambeau was never to forget the experience she had just
passed through, but for the time being it seemed too
far away to pierce the numbness round her heart.

A cry in the street did something; her cheek paled,
and Rosalie coming noisily in found her sitting up in
bed with wide, frightened eyes.  She caught at the
woman's arm and spoke in a sort of hurried whisper.

"Ah, Madame, is it true?  For Heaven's love tell
me!  Or have I had some terrible dream?" and her
voice sank, as if the sound of it terrified her.

Rosalie's fat shoulders went shrugging up to Rosalie's
thick, red ears.

"Is what true?" she asked.  "It is certainly true
that you have slept fourteen hours, no less; long enough
to dream anything.  They called it laziness when I was
young, my girl."

Mlle de Rochambeau joined both hands about her
wrist.  "Tell me—only tell me, Madame—I heard—oh,
God!—I heard a man in the street—he
said"—shuddering—"he said the prisoners were all
murdered—and my cousin—oh, my poor cousin!"  Words
brought her tears, and she covered her face from
Rosalie's convincing nod.

"As to all the prisoners, for that I cannot answer,
but certainly there are some hundreds less of the
pestilent aristocrats than there were.  As to your cousin,
the ci-devant Marquise de Montargis, she 's as dead
as mutton."

Aline looked up—she was not stupid, and this
woman's altered tone was confirmation enough without
any further words.  Two days ago, it had been
"Ma'mselle," and the respectful demeanour of a servant,
smiles and smooth words had met her, and now
that rough "my girl" and these brutal words!
Rosalie Leboeuf was no pioneer.  Had some terrible
change not taken place, she would never have
dared to speak and look as she was looking and speaking now.

Mademoiselle had not the Rochambeau blood for
nothing.  She drew herself up, looked gravely in the
woman's face, and said in a fine, cold voice:

"I understand, Madame.  Is it permitted to ask
what you propose to do with me?"

Rosalie stared insolently.  Then planting herself
deliberately on a chair, she observed:

"It is certainly permitted to ask, my little
aristocrat—certainly; but I should advise fewer airs and graces
to a woman who has saved your life twice over, and that
at the risk of her own."

Mademoiselle was silent, and Rosalie took up her
parable.  "Where would you have been by now, if I
had not brought you home with me?  There 's many a
citizen who would have been glad to find a cage for a
pretty stray bird like you, and how would that have
suited you—eh?  Better rough words from respectable
Rosalie Leboeuf than shameful kisses from Citizen
Such-a-one.  And yesterday—if I had whispered
yesterday, 'Montargis is dead, but there's a chick of
the breed roosting in my upper room,' as I might very
well have done, very well indeed, and kept your money
into the bargain—what then, Miss Mealy-mouth?  Have
you a fancy for being stripped and dragged at a cart's
tail through Paris, or would you relish being made to
drink success to the Revolution in a brimming mug
of aristocrats' blood?  Eh!  I could tell you tales, my
girl, such tales that you 'd never sleep again, and that's
what I 've saved you from, and do I get thanks—gratitude?
Tush! was that ever the nobles' way?"

"Madame—I am—grateful," said Mademoiselle
faintly.  Her lips were ashen, and the breath came
with a gasp between every word.

"Grateful—yes, indeed, I should think you were
grateful," responded Rosalie, her keen eyes on the girl's
ghastly face.  With a little nod, she decided that she
had frightened her enough.  "I want more than your
'Madame, I'm grateful,'" and as she mimicked the
faltering tones the blood ran back into Mademoiselle's
white cheeks.  "So far we have talked sentiment,"
she continued, with a complete change of manner.
Her brutality slipped from her, and she became the
bargaining bourgeoise.

"Let us come to business."

"With all my heart, Madame."

"Tut—no Madame—Citoyenne, or Rosalie.  Madame
smells of treason, disaffection, what not.  What money
have you?"

"Only what I showed you yesterday."

"But you could get more?"

"I do not think so, I know nothing of my affairs—but
there was a good deal in that bag.  I put it—yes,
I 'm sure I did—under the pillow.  Oh, Madame, my
money 's not here!  The bag is gone!"

"Té! té! té!" went Rosalie's tongue against the
roof of her mouth; "gone it is, and for a very good reason,
my little cabbage, because Rosalie Leboeuf took it!"

"Madame!"

"Ma'mselle!" mimicked the rough voice.  "It is
the little present that Ma'mselle makes me—the token
of her gratitude.  Hein! do you say anything against
that?"

Mademoiselle was silent.  She was reflecting that
she still had her pearls, and she put a timid hand to
her bosom.  A moment later, she sank back trembling
upon her pillow.  The pearls were gone.  It was not
for nothing that Rosalie had undressed her the night
before.  She bit her lip, constraining herself to silence;
and Rosalie, twinkling maliciously, maintained the same
reserve.  She was neither a cruel nor a brutal woman,
though she could appear both, if she had an end to
gain, as she had now.

She meant Mlle de Rochambeau no harm, and
honestly considered that she had earned both gold
and pearls.  Indeed, who shall say that she had not?
Girls had to be managed, and were much easier to
deal with when they had been well frightened.  When
she was well in hand, Rosalie would be kind enough,
but just now, a touch of the spur, a flick of the whip,
was what was required—and yet not too much, for
times changed so rapidly, and who knew how long
the reign of Liberty would last?  She must not overdo it.

"Well now, Citoyenne," she said suddenly, "let us
see where we are.  You came to Paris ten days ago.
Who brought you?"

"The Intendant and his wife," said Mademoiselle.

"And they are still in Paris?"  (The devil take this
Intendant!)

"No; they returned after two days.  I think now
that they were frightened."

"Very likely.  Worthy, sensible people!" said Rosalie,
with a puff of relief.  "And you came to the Montargis?
Well, she 's dead.  Are you betrothed?"

Aline turned a shade paler.  How far away seemed
that betrothal kiss which she had rubbed impatiently
from her reluctant hand!

"I was fiancée to M. de Sélincourt."

"That one?  Well, he's dead, and damned too, if
he has his deserts," commented Rosalie.  "Hm, hm—and
you knew no one else in Paris?"

"Only Mme de Maillé—she remembered my mother."

"An old story that—she is dead too," said Rosalie
composedly.  "In effect, it appears that you have no
friends; they are all dead."

Aline shrank a little, but did not exclaim.  In this
nightmare-existence upon which she had entered, it
was as natural that dreadful things should happen as
until two days ago it had seemed to her young optimism
impossible.

Rosalie pursued the conversation.

"Yes, they are all dead.  I gave myself the trouble
of going to see my sister this morning on purpose to
find out.  Marie is a poor soft creature; she cried and
sobbed as if she had lost her dearest friends, and Bault,
the great hulk, looked as white as chalk.  I always
say I should make a better gaoler myself—not that I 'm
not sorry for them, mind you, with all that place to
get clean again, and blood, as every one knows, the work
of the world to get out of things."

Mademoiselle shuddered.

"Oh!" she breathed protestingly, and then added in
haste, "They are all dead, Madame, all my friends, and
what am I to do?"

Rosalie crossed her arms and swayed approvingly.
Here was a suitable frame of mind at last—very
different from the hoity-toity airs of the beginning.

"Hein! that is the question, and I answer it this
way.  You can stay here, under my respectable roof,
until your friends come forward; but of course you
must work, or how will my rent be paid?  A mere
trifle, it is true, but still something; and besides the rent
there will be your ménage to make.  For one week
I will feed you, but after that it is your affair, and
not mine.  Even a white slip of a girl like you
requires food.  The question is, what can you do to earn it?"

Mademoiselle de Rochambeau coloured.

"I can embroider," she said hesitatingly.  "I helped
to work an altar cloth for the Convent chapel last
year."

Rosalie gave a coarse laugh.

"Eh—altar cloths!  What is the good of that?
Soon there will be no altars to put them on!"

"I learned to embroider muslin too," said Mademoiselle
hastily.  "I could work fine stuffs, for fichus, or
caps, or handkerchiefs, perhaps."

Rosalie considered.

"Well, that's better, though you 'll find it hard to fill
even your pinched stomach out of such work; but we can
see how it goes.  I will bring you muslin and thread,
and you shall work a piece for me to see.  I know a
woman who would buy on my recommendation, if it
were well done."

"They said I did it well," said Mademoiselle meekly.
Her eyes smarted suddenly, and she thought with a
desperate yearning of comfortable Sister Marie
Madeleine, or even the severe Soeur Marie Mediatrice.
How far away the Convent stillness seemed, and how
desirable!

"Good," said Rosalie; "then that is settled.  For
the rest, I cannot have Mlle de Rochambeau lodging
with me.  That will not go now.  What is your
Christian name?"

"Aline Marie."

"Aline, but no—that would give every donkey
something to bray over.  Marie is better—any one may be
Marie.  It is my sister's name, and my niece's, and was
my mother's.  It is a good name.  Well, then, you are
the Citoyenne Marie Roche."

Mademoiselle repeated it, her lip curling a little.

"Fi donc—you must not be proud," remarked
Rosalie the observant.  "You are Marie Roche, you
understand, a simple country girl, and Marie Roche
must not be proud.  Neither must she wear a fine
muslin robe and a silk petticoat or a fichu trimmed
with lace from Valenciennes.  I have brought you a
bundle of clothes, and you may be glad you had Rosalie
Leboeuf to drive the bargain for you.  Two shifts, these
good warm stockings, a neat gown, with stuff for another,
to say nothing of comb and brush, and for it all you
need not pay a sou!  Your own clothes in exchange,
that is all.  That is what I call a bargain!  Brush the
powder from your hair and put on these clothes, and
I 'll warrant you 'll be safe enough, as long as you keep
a still tongue and do as I bid you."

"Thank you," said Mademoiselle, with an effort.
Even her inexperience was aware that she was being
cheated, but she had sufficient intelligence to know
herself completely in the woman's power, and enough
self-control to bridle her tongue.

Rosalie, watching her, saw the struggle, inwardly
commended the victory, and with a final panegyric on
her own skill at a bargain she departed, and was to be
heard stumping heavily down the creaking stair.

As soon as she was alone Aline sprang out of bed.
Most of her own clothes had been removed, she found,
and she turned up her nose a little at the coarse
substitutes.  There was no help for it, however, and on they
went.  Then came a great brushing of hair, which was
left at last powderless and glossy, and twisted into a
simple knot.  Finally she put on the petticoat, of dark
blue striped stuff, and the clean calico gown.  There
was a tiny square of looking-glass in the room, cracked
relic of some former occupant, and Aline peeped
curiously into it when her toilette was completed.  A young
girl's interest in her own appearance dies very hard, and
it must be confessed that the discovery that her new
dress was far from unbecoming cheered her not a little.
She even smiled as she put on the coarse white cap, and
turned her head this way and that to catch the side
view; but the smile faded suddenly, and the next moment
she was on her knees, reproaching herself for a hard
heart, and praying with all dutiful earnestness for the
repose of her cousin's soul.





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.. _`THE INNER CONFLICT`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   THE INNER CONFLICT

.. vspace:: 2

September passed on its eventful way.  Dangeau
was very busy; there were many meetings, much
to be discussed, written, arranged, and on the
twenty-first the Assembly was dissolved, and the National
Convention proclaimed the Republic.

Dangeau as an elected member of the Convention
had his hands full enough, and there was a great deal
of writing done in the little room under the roof.
Sometimes, as he came and went, he passed his pale
fellow-lodger, and noted half unconsciously that as the days
went on she grew paler still.  Her gaze, proud yet
timid, as she stood aside on the little landing, or passed
him on the narrow stair, appealed to a heart which was
really tender.

"She is only a child, and she looks as if she had
not enough to eat," he muttered to himself once
or twice, and then found to his half-shamed
annoyance that the child's face was between him and
his work.

"You are a fool, my good friend," he remarked, and
plunged again into his papers.

He burned a good deal of midnight oil in those days,
and Rosalie Leboeuf, whose tough heart really kept a
soft corner for him, upbraided him for it.

"Tiens!" she said one day, about the middle of
October, "tiens!  The Citizen is killing himself."

Dangeau, sitting on the counter, between two piles
of apples, laughed and shook his head.

"But no, my good Rosalie—you will not be rid of me
so easily, I can assure you."

"H'm—you are as white as a girl,—as white as your
neighbour upstairs, and she looks more like snow than
honest flesh and blood."

Dangeau, who had been wondering how he should
introduce this very subject, swung his legs nonchalantly
and whistled a stave before replying.  The girl's change
of dress had not escaped him, and he was conscious,
and half ashamed of, his curiosity.  Rosalie plainly
knew all, and with a little encouragement would tell
what she knew.

"Who is she, then, Citoyenne?" he asked lightly.

"Eh! the Citizen has seen her—a slip of a white
girl.  Her name is Marie Roche, and she earns just
enough to keep body and soul together by embroidery."

Dangeau nodded his head.  He did not understand
why he wished to gossip with Rosalie about this girl,
but an idle mood was on him, and he let it carry him
whither it would.

"Why, yes, Citoyenne, I know all that, but that
does n't answer my question at all.  Who *is* Marie Roche?"

Rosalie glanced round.  Indiscretion was as dear to
her soul as to another woman's, and it was not every
day that one had the chance of talking scandal with
a Deputy.  To do her justice, she was aware that
Dangeau was a safe enough recipient of her confidences,
so after assuring herself that there was no one within
earshot, she abandoned herself to the enjoyment of the
moment.

"Aha!  The Citizen is clever, he is not to be taken
in!  Only figure to yourself, then, Citizen, that I find
this girl, a veritable aristocrat, weeping at the gates of
La Force, weeping, mon Dieu, because they will not
keep her there with her friends!  Singular, is it not?
I bring her home, I am a mother to her, and next day,
pff—all her friends are massacred, and what can I do?
I have a charitable heart, I keep her,—the marmot
does not eat much."

Dangeau enjoyed his Rosalie.

"She earns nothing, then?" he observed, with a
subdued twinkle in his eye.

"Oh, a bagatelle.  I assure you it does not suffice
for the rent; but I have a good heart, I do not let her
starve"; and Rosalie regarded the Deputy with an air of
modest virtue that sat oddly upon her large, creased face.

"Excellent Rosalie!" he said, with a soft,
half-mocking inflection.

She bridled a little.

"Ah, if the Citizen knew!" she said, with a toss of
the head, which, aiming at the arch, merely achieved
the elephantine.

"If it is a question of the Citoyenne's virtues, who
does not know them?" said Dangeau.  He made her
a little bow, and kept the sarcasm out of his voice this
time.  He was thinking of his little neighbour's look
of starved endurance, and contrasting her mentally
with the well-fed Rosalie.  He had not much confidence
in the promptings of the latter's heart if they countered
the interests of her pocket.  Suddenly a plan came into
his head, and before he had time to consider its possible
drawbacks, he found himself saying:

"Tell me, then, Citoyenne, does this Marie Roche
write a good hand?"

"H'm—well, I suppose the nuns in that Convent of
hers taught her something, and as it was neither baking
nor brewing, it may have been reading and writing,"
said Rosalie sharply.  "Does the Citizen wish her to
write him a billet-doux?"

To Dangeau's annoyed surprise he felt the colour
rise to his cheeks as he answered:

"Du tout, Citoyenne, but I do require an amanuensis,
and I thought your protégée might earn my money as
well as another.  I imagine that much fine embroidery
cannot be done in the evenings, and it would be then
that I should require her services."

"The girl is an aristocrat," said Rosalie suspiciously.

Dangeau laughed.

"Are you afraid she will contaminate me?" he asked
gaily.  "I shall set her to copy my book on the principles
of Liberty.  Desmoulins says that every child in France
should get it by heart, and though I do not quite look
for that, I hope there will be some to whom it means
what it has meant for me.  Your little aristocrat shall
write it out fair for the press, and we shall see if it will
not convert her."

"It will take too much of her time," said Rosalie sulkily.

"A few hours in the evening.  It will save her eyes
and pay better than that embroidery of hers, which as
you say barely keeps body and soul together.  I hope
we shall be able to knit them a little more closely, for at
present there seems to be a likelihood of a permanent
divorce between them."

Rosalie looked a little alarmed.

"Yes, she looks ill," she muttered; "and as you say
it would be only for an hour or two."

"Yes, for the present.  I am out all day, and it is
necessary that I should be there.  I write so badly, you
see; your little friend would soon get lost amongst my
blots if she were alone, but if I am there, she asks a
question, I answer it—and so the work goes on."

"H'm—" said Rosalie; "and the pay, Citizen?"

Dangeau got down from the counter, laughing.

"Citoyenne Roche and I will settle that," he said, a
little maliciously; "but perhaps, my good Rosalie, you
would speak to her and tell her what I want?  It would
perhaps be better than if I, a stranger, approached her
on the subject.  She looks timid—it would come better
from you."

Rosalie nodded, and caught up her knitting, as Dangeau
went out.  On the whole, it was a good plan.  The
girl was too thin—she did not wish her to die.  This
would make more food possible, and at the same time
entail no fresh expense to herself.  Yes, it was decidedly
a good plan.

"It is true, I have a charitable disposition," sighed
Rosalie.

Dangeau went on his way humming a tune.  The
lightness of his spirits surprised him.  The times were
anxious.  New Constitutions are not born without
travail.  He had an arduous part to play, heavy
responsible work to do, and yet he felt the irrational
exhilaration of a schoolboy, the flow of animal spirits
which is induced by the sudden turn of the tide in
spring, and the uplifted heart of him who walks in
dreams.  All this because a girl whom he had seen some
half-dozen times, with whom he had never spoken,
whose real name he did not know, was going to sit for
an hour or two where he could look at her, copy some
pages of his, which she would certainly find dull, and
take money, which he could ill spare, to bring a little
more colour into cheeks whose pallor was beginning to
haunt his sleep.

Dangeau bit his lip impatiently.  He did not at all
understand his own mood, and suddenly it angered him.

"The girl is an aristocrat—nourished on blind
superstition, cradled in tyranny," said his brain.

"She is only a child, and starved," said his heart;
and he quickened his steps, almost to a run, as if to
escape from the two voices.  Once at the Convention
business claimed him altogether, Marie Roche was
forgotten, and it was Dangeau the patriot who spoke
and listened, took notes and made suggestions.  It was
late when he returned, and he climbed the stair
somewhat wearily.  He was aware of a reaction from the
unreasoning gaiety of the morning.  It seemed cold and
cheerless to come back night after night to an empty
room and an uncompanioned evening, and yet he could
remember the time, not so long ago, when that dear
solitude was the birthplace of burning dreams, and
thoughts dearer than any friend.

He had not felt so dull and dreary since the year of
his mother's death, his first year alone in life, and once
or twice he sighed as he lighted a lamp and bent to the
heaped-up papers which littered his table.  Half an hour
later, a low knocking at the door made him pause.

"Enter!" he called out, expecting to see Rosalie.

The door opened rather slowly, and Mlle de Rochambeau
stood hesitating on the threshold.  Her eyes were
wide and dark with shyness, but her manner was prettily
composed as she said in her low, clear tones:

"The Citizen desires my services as a secretary?
Rosalie told me you had asked her to speak to me——"

Dangeau sprang up.  His theory of universal equality,
based upon universal citizenship, was slipping from him,
and he found himself saying:

"If Mademoiselle will do me so much honour."

Mademoiselle's beautifully arched eyebrows rose a
little.  What manner of Deputy was this?  She had
observed and liked the gravity of his face and the
distant courtesy of his manner, or utmost privation
would not have brought her to accept his offer; but she
had not expected expressions of the Court, or a bow that
might have passed at Versailles.

"I am ready, Citizen," she said, with a faint smile
and a fainter emphasis on the form of address.

For the second time that day Dangeau flushed like a
boy.  He was glad that a table had to be drawn nearer
the lamp, a chair pushed into position, ink and paper
fetched.  The interval sufficed to restore him to
composure, and Mademoiselle being seated, he returned to
his papers and to silence.

When the first page had been transcribed, Mademoiselle
brought it over to him.

"Is that clear, and as you wish it, Citizen?"

"It is very good indeed, Citoyenne"; and this time his
tongue remembered that it belonged to a Republican
Deputy.  If Mademoiselle smiled, he did not see it, and
again the silence fell.  At ten o'clock she rose.

"I cannot give you more time than this, I fear,
Citizen," she said, and unconsciously her manner
indicated that an audience was terminated.  "My embroidery
is still my 'cheval de bataille,' and I fear it would
suffer if my eyes keep too late hours."

Her low "Good-night," her scarcely hinted curtsey
passed, even whilst Dangeau rose, and before he could
reach and open the door, she had passed out, and closed
it behind her.  Dangeau wrote late that night, and
waked later still.  His thoughts were very busy.

After some evenings of silent work, he asked her
abruptly:

"What is your name?"

Mademoiselle gave a slight start, and answered
without raising her head:

"Marie Roche, Citizen."

"I mean your real name."

"But yes, Citizen"; and she wrote a word that had
to be erased.

Dangeau pushed his chair back, and paced the room.
"Marie Roche neither walks, speaks, nor writes as you
do.  Heavens!  Am I blind or deaf?"

"I have not remarked it," said Mademoiselle demurely.
Her head was bent to hide a smile, which, if
a little tremulous, still betokened genuine
amusement—amusement which it certainly would not do for the
Citizen to perceive.

"Then do you believe that I am stupid, or"—with a
change of tone—"not to be trusted?"

Mademoiselle de Rochambeau looked up at that.

"Monsieur," she said in measured tones, "why
should I trust you?"

"Why should you trust Rosalie Leboeuf?" asked
Dangeau, with a spice of anger in his voice.  "Do you
not consider me as trustworthy as she?"

"As trustworthy?" she said, a little bitterly.  "That
may very easily be; but, Monsieur, if I trusted her, it
was of necessity, and what law does necessity know?"

"You are right," said Dangeau, after a brief pause;
"I had no right to ask—to expect you to answer."

He sat down again as he spoke, and something in his
tone made Mademoiselle look quickly from her papers to
his face.  She found it stern and rather white, and was
surprised to feel herself impelled towards confidence, as
if by some overwhelming force.

"I was jesting, Monsieur," she said quickly; "my
name is Aline de Rochambeau, and I am a very friendless
young girl.  I am sure that Monsieur would do
nothing that might harm me."

Dangeau scarcely looked up.

"I thank you, Citoyenne," he said in a cold,
constrained voice; "your confidence shall be respected."

Perhaps Mademoiselle was surprised at the formality
of the reply,—perhaps she expected a shade more
response.  It had been a condescension after all, and if
one condescended, one expected gratitude.  She frowned
the least little bit, and caught her lower lip between her
white, even teeth for a moment, before she bent again
to her writing.

Dangeau's pen moved, but he was ignorant of what
characters it traced.  There is in every heart a moment
when the still pool becomes a living fountain, because
an angel has descended and the waters are divinely
troubled.  To Jacques Dangeau such a moment came
when he felt that Aline de Rochambeau distrusted him,
and by the stabbing pain that knowledge caused him,
knew also that he loved her.  When he heard her speak
her name, those troubled waters leapt towards her, and
he constrained his voice, lest it should call her by the
sweet name she herself had just spoken—lest it should
terrify her with the resonance of this new emotion, or
break treacherously and leave her wondering if he were
gone suddenly mad.

He forced his eyes upon the page that he could not
see, lest the new light in them should drive her from her
place.  He kept his hand clenched close above the pen,
lest it should catch at her dress—her hand—the white,
fine hand which wrote with such clear grace, such
maidenly quiet, and all the while his heart beat so hard
that he could scarcely believe she did not hear it.

Ten o'clock struck solemnly, and Mademoiselle
began to put away her writing materials in her usual
orderly fashion.

"You are going?" he stammered.

"Since it is the hour, Citizen," she answered, in some
surprise.

He held the door, and bowed low as she passed him.

"Good-night, Citizen."

"Good-night, Citoyenne."

Mlle de Rochambeau passed lightly out.  He heard
her door close, and shut his own.  He was alone.  A
torrent as of emotion sublimed into fire swept over him,
and soul and body flamed to it.  He paced the room
angrily.  Where was his self-control, his patriotism, his
determination to live for one only Mistress, the Republic
of his ardent dreams?  A shocked consciousness that
this aristocrat, this child of the enemy, was more to him
than the most ardent of them, assaulted his mind, but
he repulsed it indignantly.  This was a madness, a fever,
and it would pass.  He had led too solitary a life, hence
this girl's power to disturb him.  Had he mixed more
with women he would have been safe,—and suddenly he
recalled Rosalie's handsome cousin, the Thérèse of his
warning to young Cléry.  She had made unmistakable
advances to him more than once, but he had presented
a front of immovable courtesy to her inviting smiles and
glances.  Certainly an affair with her would have been
a liberal education, he reflected half scornfully, half
whimsically disgusted, and no doubt it would have left
him less susceptible.  Fool that he was!

Far into the night he paced his room, and continued
the mental struggle.  Love comes hardly to some
natures, and those not the least noble.  A man trained to
self-control, master of his own soul and all its passions,
does not without a struggle yield up the innermost
fortress of his being.  He will not abdicate, and love
will brook no second place.  The strong man armed
keepeth his house, but when a stronger than he
cometh—  All that night Dangeau wrestled with that
stronger than he!

It was some days before the evening task was
interrupted again.  If Dangeau could not speak to her
without a thousand follies clamouring in him for
utterance, he could at least hold his tongue.  Once or twice
the pen in those resolute fingers flagged, and his eyes
rested on his secretary longer than he knew.  Heavy
shadows begirt her.  The low roof sloped to the gloom
of the unlighted angles in the wall.  Outside the
lamp-light's contracted circle, all seemed strange, unformed,
grotesque.  Weird shadows hovered in the dusk background,
and curious flickers of light shot here and there,
as the ill-trimmed flame flared up, or suddenly sank.
The yellow light turned Mademoiselle's hair to burnished
gold, and laid heavy shadows under her dark blue eyes.
Its wan glow stole the natural faint rose from her cheeks
and lips, giving her an unearthly look, and waking in
Dangeau a poignant feeling, part spiritual awe, part
tender compassion for her whiteness and her youth, that
sometimes merged into the wholly human longing to
touch, hold, and comfort.

Once she looked up and caught that gaze upon her.
Her face whitened a little more, and she bent rather
lower over her writing, but afterwards, in her own room,
she blushed angrily, and wondered at herself, and him.

What a look!  How dared he?  And yet, and yet—there
was nothing in it to scare the most sensitive
maidenliness, not a hint of passion or desire.

Out of the far-away memories of her childhood, Aline
caught the reflection of that same look in other
eyes—the eyes of her beautiful mother, haunted as she gazed
by the knowledge that the little much-loved daughter
must be left to walk the path of life alone, unguarded
by the tender mother's love.  Those eyes had closed in
death ten years before, but at the recollection Aline
broke into a passionate weeping, which would not be
stilled.  One of her long-drawn sobs reached waking
ears across the way, and Dangeau caught his own breath,
and listened.  Yes, again,—it came again.  Oh God! she
was weeping!  The unfamiliar word came to his
lips as it comes to those most unaccustomed in
moments of heart strain.

"O God, she is in trouble, and I cannot help her!"
he groaned, and in that moment he ceased to fight
against his love.  To himself he ceased to matter.  It
was of her, of the beloved, of the dear sadness in her
voice, of the sweet loneliness in her eyes that he thought,
and something like a prayer went up that night from
the heart of a man who had pronounced prayer to be
a degrading superstition.  Long after Aline lay sleeping,
her wet lashes folded peacefully over dreaming eyes, he
waked, and thought of her with a passion of tenderness.





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.. _`AN OFFER OF FRIENDSHIP`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   AN OFFER OF FRIENDSHIP

.. vspace:: 2

It was some nights later that Mlle de Rochambeau,
copying serenely according to her wont, came across
something which made her eyes flash and her cheeks
burn.  So far she had written on without paying much
heed to the matter before her, her pen pursuing a
mechanical task, whilst her thought merely followed its
clear, external form, gracing it with fine script and due
punctuation.  At first, too, the strangeness of her
situation had had its share in absorbing her mind, but now
she was more at her ease, and began, as babies do, to
take notice.  Custom had set its tranquillising seal upon
her occupation, and perhaps a waking interest in
Dangeau set her wondering about his work.  Certain it is that,
having written as the heading of a chapter "Sins against
Liberty," she fell to considering the nature of Liberty
and wondering what might be these sins against it,
which were treated of, as she began to perceive, in
language theological in its fervour of denunciation.
Dangeau had written the chapter a year ago, in a white
heat of fury against certain facts which had come to his
knowledge; and it breathed a very ardent hatred towards
tyrants and their rule, towards a hereditary aristocracy
and its oppression.  Mlle de Rochambeau turned the
leaf, and read—"a race unfit to live, since it produces
men without honour and justice, and women devoid of
virtue and pity."  She dropped the sheet as if it burned,
and Dangeau, looking up, found her eyes fixed on him
with an expression of proud resentment, which stung
him keenly.

"What is it?" he asked quickly.

She read the words aloud, with a slow scorn, which
went home.

"And Monsieur believes that?" she said, with her
eyes still on his.

Dangeau was vexed.  He had forgotten the chapter.
It must read like an insult.  So far had love taken him,
but he would not deny what he had written, and after
all was it not well she should know the truth, she who
had been snatched like some pure pearl from the
rottenness and corruption of her order?

"It is the truth," he said; "before Heaven it is the
truth."

"The truth—this?" she said, smiling.  "Ah no,
Monsieur, I think not."

The smile pricked him, and his words broke out hotly.

"You are young, Citoyenne, too young to have known
and seen the shameless wickedness, the crushing tyranny,
of this aristocracy of France.  I tell you the country
has bled at every pore that vampires might suck the
blood, and fatten on it, they and their children.  Do you
claim honour for the man who does not shame to
dishonour the hearths of the poor, or pity for the woman
who will see children starving at her gate that she may
buy herself another string of diamonds—hard and cold
as her most unpitiful heart?"

"Oh!" said Mademoiselle faintly.

"It is the truth—the truth.  I have seen it—and
more, much, much more.  Tales not fit for innocent girls'
ears like yours, and yet innocent girls have suffered the
things I dare not name to you.  This is a race that
must be purged from among us, with sweat of blood, and
tears if needs be, and then—let the land enjoy her
increase.  Those who toiled as brutes, oppressed and
ground down below the very cattle they tended, shall
work, each man for his own wife and children, and the
prosperity of the family shall make the prosperity of
France."

Mlle de Rochambeau listened impatiently, her finely
cut mouth quivering with anger, and her eyes darkening
and deepening from blue to grey.  They were those
Irish eyes, of all eyes the most changeable: blue under a
blue sky, grey in anger, and violet when the soul looked
out of them—the beautiful eyes of beautiful Aileen
Desmond.  They were very dark with her daughter's
resentment now.

"Monsieur says I am young," she cried, "but he
forgets that I have lived all my life in the country
amongst those who, he says, are so oppressed, so
enslaved.  I have not seen it.  Before my parents died and
I went to the Convent, I used to visit the peasants with
my mother.  She was an angel, and they worshipped her.
I have seen women kiss the fold of her dress as she
passed, and the children would flock to her, like chickens
at feeding-time.  Then, my father—he was so good, so
just.  In his youth, I have heard he was the handsomest
man at Court; he had the royal favour, the King wished
for his friendship, but he chose rather to live on his
estates, and rule them justly and wisely.  The meanest
man in his Marquisate could come to him with his
grievance and be sure it would be redressed, and the
poorest knew that M. le Marquis would be as scrupulous
in defence of his rights as in defence of his own honour.
And there were many, many who did the same.  They
lived on their lands, they feared God, they honoured the
King.  They did justly and loved mercy."

Dangeau watched her face as it kindled, and felt the
flame in her rouse all the smouldering fires of his own
heart.  The opposition of their natures struck sparks
from both.  But he controlled himself.

"It is the power," he said in a sombre voice; "they
had too much power—might be angel or devil at will.
Too many were devil, and brought hell's torments with
them.  You honour your parents, and it is well, for if
they were as you speak of them, all would honour them.
Do you not think Liberty would have spoken to them
too?  But for every seigneur who dealt equal justice,
there were hundreds who crushed the poor because they
were defenceless.  For every woman who fostered the
tender lives around her, there were thousands who saw
a baby die of starvation at its starving mother's breast
with as little concern as if it had been a she-wolf perishing
with her whelps, and less than if it were a case of one
of my lord's hounds and her litter."

Mademoiselle felt the angry tears come sharply to her
eyes.  Why should this man move her thus?  What,
after all, did his opinions matter to her?  She chid her
own imprudence in having lent herself to this unseemly
argument.  She had already trusted him too much.  A
little tremour crept over her heart—she remembered the
September madness, the horror, and the blood,—and the
colour ebbed slowly from her cheeks as she bent forward
and took her pen again.

Dangeau saw her whiten, and in an instant his mood
changed.  Her hand shook, and he guessed the cause.
He had frightened her; she did not trust him.  The
thought stabbed very deep, but he too fell silent, and
resumed his work, though with a heavy heart.  When
she rose to go, he looked up, hesitated a moment, and
then said:

"Citoyenne."

"Yes, Citizen."

"Citoyenne, it would be wiser not to express to others
the sentiments you have avowed to-night.  They are not
safe—for Marie Roche."

"No, Citizen."

Mademoiselle's back was towards him, and he had no
means of discovering how she took his warning.

"That process of purging, of which I spoke, goes
forward apace," he continued slowly; "those who have
sinned against the people must expiate their sins, it may
be in blood."

"Yes, Citizen."

Something drove him on—that subtle instinct which
drives us all at times, the desire to probe deeply, to try
to the uttermost.

"They and their innocent children, perhaps," he said
gloomily, and her own case was in his mind.  "What do
your priests say—is it not 'to the third and fourth
generation'?"

She turned and faced him then, very pale, but quite
composed.  There was no coward blood in her.

"You are trying to tell me that you will denounce
me," she said quietly.

The words fell like a thunderbolt.  All the blood in
Dangeau's body seemed to rush violently to his head,
and for a moment he lost himself.  He was by her side,
his hands catching at her shoulders, where they lay
heavy, shaking.

"Look me in the face and say that again!" he
thundered in the voice his section knew.

"Ah!" cried Mademoiselle,—"what do you mean,
Monsieur?  This is an outrage, release me!"

His hands fell, but his eyes held hers.  They blazed
upon her like heated steel, and the anger in them burned
her.

"Ah! you dare not say it again," he said very low.

"Monsieur, I dare."  Her gaze met his, and a strange
excitement possessed her.  She would have been less
than woman had she not felt her power—more than
woman had she not used it.

Dangeau spoke again, his voice muffled with passion.
"You dare say I, Jacques Dangeau, am a spy, an
informer, a betrayer of trust?"

Mademoiselle's composure began to return.  This man
shook when he touched her; she was stronger than he.
There was no danger.

"Not quite that, Citizen," she said quietly.  "But I
did not know what a patriot might consider his duty."

He turned away, and bent over his table, arranging
a paper here, closing a drawer there.  After a few
moments he came to where she stood, and looked fixedly
at her for a short time.  His former look she had met,
but before this her eyes dropped.

"Citoyenne," he said slowly, "I ask your pardon.
I had hoped that—"  He paused, and began again.  "I
am no informer—you may have reliance on my honour
and my friendship.  I warned you because I saw you
friendless and inexperienced.  These are dangerous
times—times of change and development.  I believe with all my
heart in the goal towards which we are striving, but
many will fall by the way—some from weakness, some
by the sword.  I was but offering a hand to one whom
I saw in danger of stumbling."

His altered tone and grave manner softened Aline's
mood.  "Indeed, Citizen," she cried on the impulse,
"you have been very kind to me.  I am not ungrateful—I
have too few friends for that."

"Do you count me a friend, Citoyenne?"

Mademoiselle drew back a shade.

"What is a friend—what is friendship?" she said
more lightly.

And Dangeau sought for cool and temperate words.

"Friendship is mutual help, mutual good-will—a bond
which is rooted in honour, confidence, and esteem.  A
friend is one who will neither be oppressive in prosperity
nor faithless in adversity," he said.

"And are you such a friend, Citizen?"

"If you will accept my friendship, you will learn
whether I am such a friend or not."

The measured words, the carefully controlled voice,
emboldened Mademoiselle.  She threw a searching glance
at the dark, downcast features above her, and her youth
went out to his.

"I will try this friendship of yours, Citizen," she said,
with a little smile, and she held out her hand to him.

Dangeau flushed deeply.  His self-control shook, but
only for a moment.  Then he raised the slim hand, and,
bending to meet it, kissed it as if it had been the Queen's,
and he a devout Loyalist.

It was Aline's turn to wake and wonder that night,
acting out the little scene a hundred times.  Why that
flame of sudden anger—that tempest which had so
shaken her?  What was this power which drew her on
to experiment, to play, with forces beyond her
understanding?  She felt again the weight of his hands upon
her, her flesh tingled, and she blushed hotly in the
darkness.  No one had ever touched her so before.
Wild anger woke in her, and wilder tears came burning
to her burning cheeks.  Truly a girl's heart is a strange
thing.  The shyest maid will weave dream-tales of
passionate love, in which she plays the heroine to every
gallant hero history holds or romance presents.  Their
dream kisses leave her modesty untouched, their fervent
speeches bring no faintest flush to her virgin cheeks.
Comes then an actual lover, and all at once is changed.
The garment of her dreams falls from her, and leaves her
naked and ashamed.  A look affronts, a word offends,
and a touch goes near to make her swoon.

Aline lay trembling at her thoughts.  He had touched,
had held her.  His strong hands had bruised the tender
flesh.  She had seen a man in wrath—had known that
it was for her to raise or quell the storm.  And then
that kiss—it tingled yet, and she threw out her hand in
protest.  All her pride rose armed.  She, a Rochambeau,
daughter of as haughty a house as any France nourished,
to lie here dreaming because a bourgeois had kissed her
hand!—this was a scourge to bring blood.  It certainly
brought many tears, and at the last she knelt for a long
while praying.  The waters of her soul stilled at the
familiar words of peace, and settled back into a virgin
calm.  As yet only the surface had been ruffled by the
first breath which heralded the approaching storm.  It
had rippled under the touch, tossed for an hour, flung up
a drop or two of salt, indignant spray, and sunk again
to sleep and silence.  Below, the deeps lay all untroubled,
but in them strange things were moving.  For when she
slept she dreamed a strange dream, and disquieting.  She
thought she was at Rochambeau once more, and she
wondered why her heart did not leap for joy, instead of
being heavy and troubled, beyond anything she could
remember.

The sun was sinking, and all the fields lay golden in
the glory, but she was too weary to heed.  Her feet were
bare and bleeding, her garments torn and scanty, and on
her breast lay a little moaning babe.  It stretched slow,
groping hands to her and wailed for food, and her heart
grew heavier and darker with every step she took.
Suddenly Dangeau stood by her side.  He was angry, his
voice thundered, his look was flame, and in loud, terrible
tones he cried, "You have starved my child, and it is
dead!"  Then she thought he took the baby from her
arms, and an angel with a flaming sword flew out of the
sun, and drew her down—down—down....

She woke terrified, bathed in tears.  What a dream!
"Holy Mary, Mother and Virgin, shield me!" she
prayed, as she crouched breathless in the gloom.  "The
powers of darkness—the powers of evil!  Let dreams be
far and phantoms of the night—bind thou the foe.
His look, his fearful look, and his deep threatening voice
like the trump of the Angel of Judgment!  Mary, Virgin,
save!"

Thoughts wild and incoherent; prayers softening to a
sob, sobs melting again into a prayer!  Loneliness and the
midnight had their way with her, and it was not until
the tranquillising moon shot a silver ray into the small
dark room that the haunting agony was calmed, and she
sank into a dreamless sleep.





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.. _`THE OLD IDEAL AND THE NEW`:

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   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium

   THE OLD IDEAL AND THE NEW

.. vspace:: 2

It was really only on four evenings of the week that
Dangeau was able to avail himself of Mlle de
Rochambeau's services.

On Sundays she took a holiday both from embroidery
and copying, and on Mondays and Thursdays he spent
the evening at the Cordeliers' Club.

It was on a Saturday that Dangeau had stormed,
proffered friendship, and kissed Mademoiselle's hand, so
that during the two days that followed both had time to
calm down, to experience a slight revulsion of feeling, and
finally to feel some embarrassment at the thought of
their next meeting.

On Tuesday Dangeau was in his room all the afternoon.
He had some important papers to read through,
and when he had finished them, felt restless, yet
disinclined to go out again.

It was still light, but the winter dark would fall in
half an hour, and the evening promised to be wet and
stormy.  A gust of wind beat upon the window now
and again, leaving it sprayed with moisture.  Dangeau
stood awhile looking out, his mood grey as the weather.
Some one not far off was singing, and he opened his
window, and leaned idly out to see if the singer were
visible.  The sound at once grew faint, almost to
extinction, and latching the casement he fell to pacing his
room.  By the door he paused, for the sound was surely
clearer.  He turned the handle and stood listening, for
Mademoiselle's door was ajar, and from within her voice
came sweetly and low.  He had an instant vision of how
she would look, sitting close to the dull window, grey
twilight on the shining head bent over the fine white
work as she sang to keep the silence and the loneliness
from her heart.  The song was one of those soft
interminable cradle songs which mothers sing in every
country place, rocking the full cradle with patient
rhythmic foot, the while they spin or knit, and every
word came clear to a lilting air:

   |  "She sat beneath the wayside tree,
   |  Et lon, lon, lon, et la, la, la—
   |  She heard the birds sing wide and free,
   |    Hail Mary, full of grace!

   |  "She had no shelter for her head,
   |  Et lon, lon, lon, et la, la, la,
   |  Except the leaves that God had spread—
   |    Hail Mary, full of grace!

   |  "Down flew the Angel Gabriel,
   |  Et lon, lon, lon, et la, la, la,
   |  He said, 'Maid Mary, greet thee well!'
   |    Hail Mary, full of grace!"

The song was interrupted for a moment, but he heard
her hum the tune.  To the lonely man came a swift,
holy thought of what it would be to see her rock a child
to that soft air in a happy twilight, no longer solitary.
He heard her move her chair and sigh a little as she sat
down again.  The daylight died as if with gasps for
breath palpably withdrawn:

   |  "She laid her Son in the oxen's stall,
   |  Et lon, lon, lon, et la, la, la—
   |  Herself she did not rest at all,
   |    Hail Mary, full of grace!"

Another pause, another sigh, and then the sound of steps
moving about the room.  Then the door was shut, and
with a little smile half tender, half impatient, Dangeau
turned to his work again.

When the evening was come, and Mademoiselle was
in her place, he asked her suddenly:

"What do you do with yourself on Sunday?"

"I take a holiday, Citizen," she answered demurely,
and without looking up.

"But what do you do with your holiday, Citoyenne,"
said Dangeau, persistent.

Mademoiselle smiled a little and blushed a little,
smile and blush alike reproving his curiosity, but after
a slight hesitation she said:

"I go to one of the great churches."

"And when you are there?"

"Is it the Catechism?" ventured Mademoiselle, and
then went on hastily, "I say my prayers, Citizen."

"And could you not say them at home?"

"Why, yes, and I do, Citizen, but I go to hear the
Mass; and then the church is so solemn, and big, and
beautiful.  Others are praying round me, and I feel my
prayers are heard."

Dangeau frowned and then broke out impatiently:

"That idea of prayer—it is so selfish—each one
asking, asking, asking.  I do not find that ennobling!"

"Is it so selfish to ask for patience and courage, then,
Citizen?"

"And is that what you pray for?" he asked, arrested
by something in her tone.

Aline's colour rose high under his softened look, and
she inclined her head without speaking.

"That might pass," said Dangeau reflectively.  "I
do not believe in priests, or an organised religion, but
I have my own creed.  I believe in one Supreme Being
from whom flows that tide which we call Life when it
rises in us, and Death when it ebbs again to Him.  If
the creature could, by straining towards the Creator,
draw the life-tide more strongly into his own soul, that
would be worthy prayer; but to most men, what is
religion?—a mere ignoble system of reward or punishment,
fit perhaps for children, or slaves, but no free
man's creed."

"What would you give them instead, Citizen?"
asked Mademoiselle seriously.

"Reason," cried Dangeau; "pure reason.  Teach man
to reason, and you lift him above such degrading
considerations.  Even the child should not be punished, it
should be reasoned with; but there—"  He paused,
for Mademoiselle was laughing a soft, irrepressible laugh,
that filled the small, low room.

"Oh, Citizen, forgive me," she cried; "but you
reminded me of something that happened when I was
a child.  I do not quite know whether the story fits
your theory or mine, but I will tell it you, if you like."

"If it fits my theory, I shall annex it unscrupulously,
of that I give you fair warning," said Dangeau, laughing.
"But tell it to me first, and we will dispute about it
afterwards."

Aline leaned back in her upright chair, and a little
remembering smile came into her eyes.

"Well, Citizen, you must know that I was only nine
years old when I went to the Convent, and I was a
spoilt child, and gave the good nuns a great deal of
trouble, I am afraid.

"The sister in charge of us was Sister Marie Josèphe,
and we were very fond of her; but when we were naughty,
out came a birch rod, and we were soundly punished.

"Now Sister Marie Josèphe was not strong; she
suffered much from pain in her head, and sometimes it
was so bad that she was obliged to be alone, and in the
dark.  When this happened, Sister Géneviève took her
place, and Sister Géneviève was like you, Citizen; she
believed in the efficacy of pure reason!  If under her
regime there was a crime to be punished, then there
was no birch rod forthcoming, but instead, a very long,
dreary sermon—an hour by the clock, at least—and at
the end a very limp, discouraged sinner, usually in tears.
But, Citizen, it was ennuyant, most terrible ennuyant,
and much, much worse than being whipped; for that
only lasted a minute, and then there were tears, kisses,
promises of amendment, and a grand reconciliation.
Well, I must tell you that I had a great desire to see
the moon rise over the hill behind us.  Our windows
looked the other way, and as it was winter time we
were all locked in very early.  Adèle de Matignon
dared me to get out.  I declared I would, and I watched
my time.  I am sure Sister Marie Josèphe must have
been very much surprised by my frequent and tender
inquiries after her health at that time.

"'Always a little suffering, my child,' she would say,
and then I would whisper to Adèle, 'We must wait.'

"At last, however, a day came when the good sister
answered, 'Ah, it goes better, thanks to the Virgin,' and
I told Adèle that it would be for that evening.  Well, I
got out.  I climbed through a window, and down a pear
tree.  I scratched my hands, and fell into some bushes,
and after all there was no moon!  The night was cloudy
and presently it began to rain.  I assure you, Citizen,
I was very well punished before I came up for judgment.
Of course I was discovered, and, to my horror, found
myself in the hands of Sister Géneviève.  'But where
is Sister Marie Josèphe?' I sobbed.  'Ah, my child!'
said Sister Géneviève mildly, 'this wickedness of yours
has brought on one of her worst attacks, and she is
suffering too much to come to you.'  I cried dreadfully,
for I was very much discouraged, and felt that one of
Sister Géneviève's sermons would remove my last hope
in this world.  She did not know what to make of me,
I am sure, but I had to listen to more pure reason
than I had ever done before, and I assure you, Citizen,
that it gave me a headache almost as bad as poor Sister
Marie Josèphe's."

Mademoiselle laughed again as she finished her tale,
and looked at Dangeau with arch, malicious eyes.  He
joined her laughter, but would have the last word; for,

"See, Citoyenne," he said, "see how your tale
supports my theory, and how fine a deterrent was the
pure reason of Sister Géneviève as compared with the
birch rod of Sister Marie Josèphe!"

"But if it is a punishment, then your theory falls to
the ground, since you were to do away with all reward
and punishment!" objected Aline.

Dangeau's eyes twinkled.

"You are too quick," he said in mock surrender.

Mademoiselle took up her pen.

"I am very slow over my work," she answered,
smiling.  "See how I waste my time!  You should
scold me, Citizen."

They wrote for awhile, but Dangeau's pen halted, the
merriment died out of his face, leaving it stern and
gloomy.  These were no times to foster even an innocent
gaiety.  Abruptly he began to speak again.

"You see only flowers and innocence upon your
altars, but I have seen them served by cruelty, blood,
and lust."

Aline looked up, startled.

"I could not tell you the tales I know—they are
not fit."  His brow clouded.  "My mother was a good
woman, good and religious.  I have still a reverence for
what she reverenced; I can still worship the spirit of
her worship, though I have travelled far enough since
she taught me at her knee.  I have seen too many
crimes committed in the name of Religion," and he
broke off, leaning his head upon his hand.

Mlle de Rochambeau's eyes flashed.

"And in the name of Liberty, none?" she asked with
a sudden ring in her voice.

A vision of blood and horror swept between them.
Dangeau saw in memory the gutters of Paris awash with
the crimson of massacre.  Dead, violet eyes in a severed
head pike-lifted stared at him from the gloom, and
under his gaze he thought they changed, turned greyer,
darker, and took the form and hue of those which Aline
raised to his.  He shuddered violently, and answered in
a voice scarcely audible:

"Yes, there have been crimes."

Then he looked up again, snatching his thoughts back
to control.

"Liberty is only a name, as yet," he said; "we have
taken away the visible chain which manacled the body,
but an invisible one lies deep, and corroded, fettering
the heart and will, and as it rusts into decay it breeds
a deadly poison there.  The work of healing cannot be
done in a day.  There can be no true liberty until our
children are cradled in it, educated in it, taught to hold
it as the air, without which they cannot breathe.  That
time is to come, but first there will be much bitterness,
much suffering, much that is to be deplored.  You may
well pray for strength and patience," he continued, after
a momentary pause, "for we shall all need them in
the times that are coming."

Slowly, but surely, the spirit of the two great
Republican Clubs was turning to violence and lust of power.
Hébert, Marat, and Fouquier Tinville were rising into
prominence—fatal, evil stars, driven on an orbit of
mad passion.

Robespierre's name still stood for moderation, but
there was, at times, an expression on his livid face, a
spark in his haggard eyes, which left a more ominous
impression than Marat's flood of vituperation or
Tinville's calculating cruelty.

Dangeau's heart was very heavy.  The splendid dawn
was here—the dawn longed for, looked for, hoped for
through so many hours of blackest night—and behold,
it came up redly threatening, precursor, not of the full,
still day of peace, but of some Armageddon of wrath
and fury.  The day of peace would come, must come,
but who could say that he would live to see it?  There
were times when it seemed unutterably far away.

A dark mood was upon him.  He could not write,
but stared gloomily before him.  That anxiety, that
quickened sense of all life's sadness and dangers which
comes over us at times when we love, possessed him
now.  How long would this young life, which meant
he was afraid to gauge how much to him, be safe in
the midst of this fermenting city?  Her innocence
stabbed his soul, her delicate pride caught at his
heart-strings.  How long could the one endure?  How soon
might not the other be dragged in the dust?  Rosalie
he knew only too well.  She would not betray the
girl, but neither would she go out of her own safe way
to protect her; and she was venal, narrow, and hard.

He did not kiss Mademoiselle's hand to-night, but he
took it for a moment as she passed, and stood looking
down at it as he said:

"If God is, He will bless you."

Mademoiselle's heart beat violently.

"And you too, Citizen," she murmured, with an
involuntary catch of the breath.

"Do you pray for me?" he asked, filled with a new
emotion.

"Yes, Citizen," she said, in a very low voice.

Dangeau was about to speak again—to say he knew
not what—but with her last words she drew her hand
gently away, and was gone.  He stood where she had
left him, breathing deeply.  Suddenly the gloom that
lay upon him became shot with light, and hope rose
trembling in his heart.  He felt himself strong—a
giant.  What harm could touch her under the shield of
his love?  Who would dare threaten what he would
cherish to the death?  In this new exultation he flung
the window wide, and leaned out.  A little snow had
fallen, and the heaviness of the air was relieved.  Now it
came crisp and vigorous against his cheek.  Far above,
the clouds made a wide ring about the moon.  Serenely
tranquil she floated in the space of clear, dark sky, and
all the night was irradiated as if by thoughts of peace.





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.. _`THE FATE OF A KING`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium

   THE FATE OF A KING

.. vspace:: 2

December was a month of turmoil and raging
dissensions.  Faction fought faction, party abused
party, and all was confusion and clamour.  In the great
Hall of the Convention, speaker succeeded speaker,
Deputy after Deputy rose, and thundered, rose, and
declaimed, rose, and vituperated.  Nothing was done, and
in every department of the State there reigned a chaos
indescribable.  "Moderation and delay," clamoured the
Girondins, smooth, narrow Roland at their head,
mouthpiece, as rumour had it, of that beautiful philosopher,
his wife.  "To work and have done with it," shouted the
men of the Mountain, driving their words home with
sharp accusations of lack of patriotism and a desire to
favour Monarchy.

On the 11th of the month, the Hall had echoed to
the Nation's indictment of Louis Capet, sometime King
of France.

On the 26th, Louis, still King in his own eyes, made
answer to the Nation's accusation by the mouth of his
advocate, the young Désèze.

For three hours that brave man spoke, manfully
striving against the inevitable, and, having finished
a most eloquent speech, threw his whole energies
into obtaining what was the best hope of the
King's friends—delay, delay, delay, and yet again
delay.

The matter dragged on and on.  Every mouthing
Deputy had his epoch-making remarks to make, and
would make them, though distracted Departments
waited until the Citizen Deputies should have finished
judging their King, and have time to spare for the
business of doing the work they had taken out of his hands;
whilst outside, a carefully stage-managed crowd howled
all day for bread, and for the Traitor Veto's head, which
they somehow imagined, or were led to imagine, would
do as well.

The Mountain languished a little without its leader,
who was absent on a mission to the Low Countries, and,
Danton's tremendous personality removed, it tended to
froth of accusation and counter-accusation, by which
matters were not at all advanced.  At the head of
his Jacobins sat Robespierre, as yet coldly inscrutable,
but amongst the Cordeliers there was none to replace
Danton.

In the early days of January, the Netherlands gave
him back again, and the Mountain met in conclave—its
two parties blended by the only man who could so blend
them.  The long Committee-room was dark, and though
it was not late, the lamps had been lighted for some
time.  Under one of them a man sat writing.  His
straight, unnaturally sleek hair was brushed carefully
back from a forehead of spectral pallor.  His narrow
lips pressed each other closely, and he wrote with an
absorbed concentration which was somehow not agreeable
to witness.

Every now and then he glanced up, and there was a
hinted gleam of red—a mere spark not yet fanned into
flame—behind the shallows of his eyes.  The lamp-light
showed every detail of his almost foppish dress, which was
in marked contrast to his unpleasing features, and to the
custom of his company; for those were days when careful
attire was the aristocrat's prerogative, and clean linen
rendered a patriot gravely suspect.

By the fire two men were talking in low voices—Hébert,
sensual, swollen of body, flat and pale of face;
and Marat, a misshapen, stunted creature with short,
black, curling hair, pinched mouth, and dark, malignant
gaze.

"We get no further," complained Hébert, in a dull,
oily voice, devoid of ring.

Marat shrugged his crooked shoulders.

"We are so ideal, so virtuous," he remarked viciously.
"We were so shocked in September, my friend; you should
remember that.  Blood was shed—actually people were
killed—fie then! it turns our weak stomachs.  We look
askance at our hands, and call for rose-water to wash
them in."

"Very pretty," drawled Hébert, pushing the fire with
his foot.  "There are fools in the world, and some here,
no doubt; but after all, we all want the same thing in
the end, though some make a boggle at the price.  I
want power, you want power, Danton wants it, Camille
wants it, and so does even your piece of Incorruptibility
yonder, if he would come out of his infernal pose and
acknowledge it."

Robespierre looked up, and down again.  No one
could have said he heard.  It was in fact not possible,
but Hébert grew a faint shade yellower, and Marat's
eyes glittered maliciously.

"Ah," he said, "that's just it—just the trouble.
We all want the same thing, and we are all afraid to
move, for fear of giving it to some one else.  So we
all sit twiddling our thumbs, and the Gironde calls the
tune."

Hébert swore, and spat into the fire.

"Now Danton is back, he will not twiddle his thumbs
for long," he said; "that is not at all his idea of
amusing himself.  He is turning things over—chewing the
cud.  Presently, you will see, the bull will bellow,
and the whole herd will trot after him."

"Which way?" asked Marat sarcastically.

"H'm—that is just what I should like to know."

"And our Maximilian?"

"What does he mean?  What does he want?"
Hébert broke out uneasily, low-voiced.  "He is all for
mildness and temperance, justice and sobriety; but under
it—under it, Marat?"

Marat's pointed brows rose abruptly.

"The devil knows," said he, "but I don't believe
Maximilian does."

Robespierre looked up again with calm, dispassionate
gaze.  His eye dwelt on the two for a moment, and
dropped to the page before him.  He wrote the words,
"Above all things the State"—and deep within him the
imperishable ego cried prophetic, "L'État, c'est moi!"

The room began to fill.  Men came in, cursing the
cold, shaking snow from their coats, stamping icy
fragments from their frozen feet.  The fire was popular.
Hébert and Marat were crowded from the place they
had occupied, and a buzz of voices rose from every
quarter.  Here and there a group declaimed or argued,
but for the most part men stood in twos and threes
discussing the situation in confidential tones.

If intellect was less conspicuous than in the ranks of
the Gironde, it was by no means absent, and many faces
there bore its stamp, and that of ardent sincerity.  For
the most part they were young, these men whose meeting
was to make History, and they carried into politics the
excesses and the violence of youth.

Here leaned Hérault de Séchelles, one of the
handsomest men in France; there, declaiming eagerly, to
as eager a circle of listeners, was St. Just with that
curious pallor which made his face seem a mere
translucent mask behind which there burned a
seven-times-heated flame.

"I say that Louis can claim no rights as a citizen.
We are fighting, not trying him.  The law's delays are
fatal here.  One day posterity will be amazed that we
have advanced so little since Cæsar's day.  What—patriots
were found then to immolate the tyrant in
open Senate, and to-day we fear to lift our hands!
There is no citizen to-day who has not the right
that Brutus had, and like Brutus he might claim
to be his country's saviour!  Louis has fought against
the people, and is now no longer a Frenchman,
but a stranger, a traitor, and a criminal!  Strike,
then, that the tocsin of liberty may sound the birth
hour of the Nation and the death hour of the Tyrant!"

"It is all delay, delay," said Hérault gloomily to
young Cléry.  "Désèze works hard.  Time is what he
wants—and for what?  To hatch new treasons; to get
behind us, and stab in the dark; to allow Austria to
advance, and Spain and England to threaten us!  No,
they have had time enough for these things.  It is the
reckoning day.  Thirty-eight years has Louis lived and
now he must give an account of them."

"My faith," growled Jean Bon, shaking his shaggy
head, to which the winter moisture clung, "My faith,
there are citizens in this room who will take matters
into their own hands if the Convention does not come
to the point very shortly."

"The Convention deliberates," said Hérault gloomily,
and Jean Bon interrupted him with a brutal laugh—

"Thunder of Heaven, yes; talk, talk, talk, and nothing
done.  We want a clear policy.  We want Danton to
declare himself, and Robespierre to stop playing the
humanitarian, and say what he means.  There has been
enough of turning phrases and lawyers' tricks.  Louis
alive is Louis dangerous, and Louis dead is Louis dust;
that's the plain truth of it."

"He is of more use to us alive than dead, I should
say," cried Edmund Cléry impetuously.  "Are we in so
strong a position as to be able with impunity to destroy
our hostages?"

Hébert, who had joined the group, turned a cold,
remembering eye upon him.

"Austria does not care for Capet," he said scornfully;
"Antoinette and the boy are all the hostages we require.
Austria does not even care about them very much;
but such as they are they will serve.  Capet must die,"
and he sprang on a bench and raised his voice:

"Capet must die!—I demand his blood as the seal of
Republican liberty.  If he lives, there will be endless
plots and intrigues.  I tell you it is his life now, or ours
before long.  The people is a hard master to serve, my
friends.  To-day they want a Republic, but to-morrow
they may take a fancy to their old plaything again.
'Limited Monarchy!' cries some fool, and forthwith on
goes Capet's crown, and off go our heads!  A smiling
prospect, hein, mes amis?"

There was a murmur, part protest, part encouragement.

Hébert went on:

"Some one says deport him; he can do no more harm
than the Princes are doing already.  Do you perhaps
imagine that a man fights as well for his brother's
crown as for his own?  The Princes are half-hearted—they
are in no danger, the crown is none of theirs, their
wives and children are at liberty; but put Capet in their
place, and he has everything to gain by effort and all to
lose by quiescence.  I say that the man who says 'Send
Capet out of France' is a traitor to the Republic, and a
Monarchist at heart!  Another citizen says, 'Imprison
him, keep him shut up out of harm's way.'  Out of
harm's way—that sounds well enough, but for my part
I have no fancy for living over a powder magazine.
They plot and conspire, these aristocrats.  They do it
foolishly enough, I grant you, and we find them out, and
clap them in prison.  Now and then there is a little
blood-letting.  Not enough for me, but a little.  Then
what?  More of the breed at the same game, and encore,
and encore.  Some day, my friends, we shall wake up and
find that one of the plots has succeeded.  Pretty fools
we should look if one fine morning they were all flown,
our hostages—Capet, the Austrian, the proud jade
Elizabeth, and the promising youth.  Shall I tell you what
would be the next thing?  Why, our immaculate generals
would feel it their duty to conclude a peace with profits.
There would be an embracing, a fraternising, a
reconciliation on our frontiers, and hand in hand would come
Austria and our army, conducting Capet to his faithful
town of Paris.  It is only Citizen Robespierre who is
incorruptible—meaner mortals do not pretend to it.  In
our generals' place, I myself, I do not say that I should
not do the same, for I should certainly conclude that I
was being governed by a parcel of fools, and that I should
do well to prove my own sanity by saving my head."

Danton had entered as Hébert sprang up.  His loose
shirt displayed the powerful bull-neck; his broad, rugged
forehead and deep-set passionate eyes bespoke the rough
power and magnetism of his personality.  He came in
quietly, nodding to a friend here and there, his arm
through that of Camille Desmoulins, who, with dark hair
tossed loosely from his beautiful brow, and strange eyes
glittering with a visionary light, made an arresting figure
even under Danton's shadow.

In happier days the one might have been prophet,
ruler, or statesman; the other poet, priest, or dreamer of
ardent dreams; but in the storm of the Red Terror they
rose, they passed, they fell; for even Danton's thunder
failed him in the face of a tempest elemental as the
crash of worlds evolving from chaos.

He listened now, but did not speak, and Camille, at his
side, flung out an eager arm.

"The man must die!" he shouted in a clear, ringing
voice.  "The people call for his blood, France calls for
his blood, the Convention calls for his blood.  I demand
it in the sacred name of Liberty.  Let the scaffold of a
King become the throne of an enduring Republic!"

Robespierre looked up with an expression of calm
curiosity.  These wild enthusiasms, this hot-blooded
ardour, how strange, how inexplicable, and yet at times
how useful.  He leaned across the table and began to
speak in a thin, colourless voice that somehow made
itself heard, and enforced attention.

"Capet has had a fair trial at the hands of a righteous
and representative Assembly.  If the Convention is
satisfied that he is innocent, maligned perhaps by men
of interested motives"—there was a slight murmur of
dissent—"or influenced to unworthy deeds by those
around him, or merely ignorant—strangely, stupidly
ignorant—the Convention will judge him.  But if he has
sinned against the Nation, if he has oppressed the people,
if he has given them stone for bread, and starvation for
prosperity—if he has conspired with Austria against the
integrity of France in order to bolster up a tottering
tyranny, why, then"—he paused whilst a voice cried,
"Shall the people oppressed through the ages not take
their revenge of a day?" and an excited chorus of oaths
and execrations followed the words—"why, then," said
the thin voice coldly, "still I say, the Convention will
judge him."

Maximilian Robespierre took up his pen and wrote on.
Something in his words had fanned the scattered embers
into flame, and strife ran high.  Jules Dupuis,
foul-mouthed and blasphemous, screamed out an edged tirade.
Jean Bon boomed some commonplace of corroboration.
Marat spat forth a venomous word or two.  Robespierre
folded the paper on which he wrote, and passed the note
to Danton at his elbow.  The great head bent, the deep
eyes read, and lifting, fixed themselves on Robespierre's
pale face.  It was a face as strange as pale.  Below the
receding brow the green, unwinking eyes held steady.
The red spark trembled in them and smouldered to a
blaze.

Danton looked strangely at him for a moment, and
then, throwing back his great shoulders and raising his
right hand high above the crowd, he thundered:

"Citizens, Capet must die!"

A roar of applause shook the room, and drowned the
reverberations of that mighty voice—Danton's voice,
which shook not only the Mountain on which he stood,
and from which he fell, but France beyond and Europe
across her frontiers.  It echoes still, and comes to us
across the years with all the man's audacious force, his
pride of patriotism, and overwhelming energy!
raised it now, and beckoning for silence——

"We are all agreed," he cried, "Louis is guilty, and
Louis must die.  If he lives, there is not a life safe in all
France.  The man is an open sore on the flesh of the
Constitution, and it must be cut away, lest gangrene seize
the whole.  Above all there must be no delay.  Delay
means disintegration; delay means a people without
bread, and a country without government.  Neither can
wait.  Away with Louis, and our hands are free to do
all that waits to be done."

"The frontiers—Europe—are we strong enough?"
shouted a voice from the back.

Danton's eyes blazed.

"Let Europe look to herself.  Let Spain, Austria, and
England look to themselves.  The rot of centuries is ripe
at last.  Other thrones may totter, and other tyrants fall.
Let them threaten—let them threaten, but we will dash
a gage of battle at their feet—the bloody head of the
King!"

At that the clamour swallowed everything.  Men
cheered and embraced.  There was shouting and high
applause.

Danton turned from the riot and fell into earnest talk
with Robespierre.  In Hébert's ear Marat whispered:

"As you said.  The bull has roared, and we all follow."

"All?" asked Hébert significantly.

"Some people have an inexplicable taste for being in
the minority," said Marat, shrugging.

"As, for instance?"

"Our young friend Dangeau."

"Ah, that Dangeau," cursed Hébert, "I have a grudge
against him."

"Very ungrateful of you, then," said Marat briskly;
"he saved Capet and his family at a time when it suited
none of us that they should die.  We want a spectacle—something
imposing, public, solemn; something of a fête,
not just a roaring crowd, a pike-thrust or two, and pff! it
is all over."

"It is true."

"See you, Hébert, when we have closed the churches,
and swept away the whole machinery of superstition,
what are we going to give the people instead of them?
I say La République must have her fêtes, her holidays,
her processions, and her altars, with St. Guillotine as
patron saint, and the good Citizen Sanson as officiating
priest.  We want Capet's blood, but can we stop there?
No, a thousand times!  Paris will be drunk, and then, in
a trice, Paris will be thirsty again.  And the oftener
Paris is drunk, the thirstier she will be, until——"

"Well, my friend?"  Hébert was a little pale; had he
any premonition of the day when he too should kneel at
that Republican altar?

Marat's face was convulsed for a moment.

"I don't know," he said, in sombre tones.

"But Dangeau," said Hébert after a pause, "the
fellow sticks in my gorge.  He is one of your moral
idealists, who want to cross the river without wetting
their feet.  He has not common-sense."

"Danton is his friend," said Marat with intention.

"And it's 'ware bull.'"

"I know that.  See now if Danton does not pack
him off out of Paris somewhere until this business is
settled."

"He might give trouble—yes, he might give trouble,"
said Marat slowly.

"He is altogether too popular," grunted Hébert.

Marat shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, popularity," he said, "it's here to-day and gone
to-morrow; and when to-morrow comes——"

"Well?"

"Our young friend will have to choose between his
precious scruples and his head!"

Marat strolled off, and Jules Dupuis took his
place.  He came up in his short puce coat, guffawing,
and purple-faced, his loose skin all creased with
amusement.

"Hé, Hébert," he chuckled, "here 's something for the
Père Duchesne," and plunged forthwith into a scurrilous
story.  As he did so, the door opened and Dangeau came
in.  He looked pale and very tired, and was evidently
cold, for he made his way to the fireplace, and stood
leaning against it looking into the flame, without
appearing to notice what was passing.  Presently, however, he
raised his head, recognising the two men beside him with
a curt nod.

Hébert appeared to be well amused by Dupuis'
tale.  Its putrescent scintillations stimulated his jaded
fancy, and its repulsive dénouement evoked his oily
laugh.

Dangeau, after listening for a moment or two, moved
farther off, a slight expression of disgust upon his
face.

Hébert's light eyes followed him.

"The Citizen does not like your taste in wit, my
friend," he observed in a voice carefully pitched to reach
Dangeau's ear.

Dupuis laughed grossly.

"More fool he, then," he chuckled.

"You and I, mon cher, are too coarse for him,"
continued Hébert in the same tone.  "The Citizen is
modest.  Tiens!  How beautiful a virtue is modesty!
And then, you see, the Citizen's sympathies are with
these sacrés aristocrats."

Dangeau looked up with a glance like the flash of
steel.

"You said, Citizen—?" he asked smoothly.

Hébert shrugged his loosely-hung shoulders.

"If I said the Citizen Deputy had a tender heart,
should I be incorrect?  Or, perhaps, a weak stomach
would be nearer to the truth.  Blood is such a
distressing sight, is it not?"

Dangeau looked at him steadily.

"A patriot should hold his own life as lightly as he
should hold that of every other citizen sacred until the
State has condemned it," he said with a certain quiet
disgust; "but if the Citizen says that I sympathise with
what has been condemned by the State, the Citizen lies!"

Hébert's eyes shifted from the blue danger gleam.
Bully and coward, he had the weakness of all his type
when faced.  He preferred the unresisting victim and
could not afford an open quarrel with Dangeau.  Danton
was in the room, and he did not wish to offend Danton
yet.  He moved away with a sneer and a mocking
whisper in the ear of Jules Dupuis.

Dangeau stood warming himself.  His back was
straighter, his eye less tired.  The little interchange of
hostilities had roused the fire in his veins again, and for
the moment the cloud of misgiving which had shadowed
him for the last few days was lifted.  When Danton
came across and clapped him on the shoulder, he looked
up with the smile to which he owed more than one of
his friends, since to a certain noble gravity of aspect it
lent a very human, almost boyish, warmth and glow.

"Back again, and busy again?" he said, turning.

"Busier than ever," said Danton, with a frown.  He
raised his shoulders as if he felt a weight upon them.
"Once this business of Capet's is arranged, we can work;
at present it's just chaos all round."

Dangeau leaned closer and spoke low.

"I was detained—have only just come.  Has anything
been done—decided?"

"We are unanimous, I think.  I spoke, they all
agreed.  Robespierre is with us, and his party is well
in hand.  Death is the only thing, and the sooner the
better."

Dangeau did not speak, and Danton's eye rested on
him with a certain impatience.

"Sentiment will serve neither France nor us at this
juncture," he said on a deep note, rough with irritation.
"He has conspired with Austria, and would bring in
foreign troops upon us without a single scruple.  What
is one man's life?  He must die."

Dangeau looked down.

"Yes, he must die," he said in a low, grave voice, and
there was a momentary silence.  He stared into the fire,
and saw the falling embers totter like a mimic throne,
and fall into the sea of flame below.  A cloud of sparks
flew up, and were lost in blackness.

"Life is like that," he said, half to himself.

Danton walked away, his big head bent, the veins of
his throat swollen.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE IRREVOCABLE VOTE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium

   THE IRREVOCABLE VOTE

.. vspace:: 2

Danton returned was Danton in action.  Force
possessed the party once more and drove it
resistless to its goal.  Permanent Session was moved, and
carried—permanent Session of the National Convention—until
its near five hundred members had voted one by
one on the three all-important questions: Louis Capet,
is he guilty, or not guilty?  Shall the Convention judge
him, or shall there be a further delay, an appeal to the
people of France?  If the Convention judges, what is
its judgment—imprisonment, banishment, or death?

Forthwith began the days of the Three Votings,
stirring and dramatic days seen through the mist of
years and the dust-clouds raised by groping historians.
What must they have been to live through?

It was Wednesday evening, January 16, and lamps
were lit in the Hall of the Convention, but their glow
shone chiefly on the tribune, and beyond there crowded
the shadows, densely mysterious.  Vergniaud, the
President, wore a haggard face—his eyes were hot and
weary, for he was of the Gironde, and the Gironde
began to know that the day was lost.  He called the
names sonorously, with a voice that had found its pitch
and kept it in spite of fatigue; and as he called, the long
procession of members rose, passed for an instant to the
lighted tribune, and voted audibly in the hearing of the
whole Convention.  Each man voted, and passed again
into the shadow.  So we see them—between the dark
past and the dark future—caught for an instant by that
one flash which brands them on history's film for ever.

Loud Jacobin voices boomed "Death," and ranted of
treason; epigrams were made to the applause of the
packed galleries.  For the people of Paris had crowded
in, and every available inch of room was packed.  Here
were the *tricoteuses*—those knitting women of the
Revolution, whose steel needles were to flash before the
eyes of so many of the guillotine's waiting victims, before
the eyes indeed of many and many an honourable
Deputy voting here to-night.  Here were swart men of
St. Antoine's quarter—brewers, bakers, oilmen, butchers,
all the trades—whispering, listening, leaning over the
rail, now applauding to the echo, now hissing indignantly,
as the vote pleased or displeased them.  Death demanded
with a spice of wit pleased the most—a voice faltering
on a timorous recommendation to mercy evoked the
loudest jeers.

Dangeau sat in his place and heard the long, reverberating
roll of names, until his own struck strangely on his
ear.  He rose and mounted into the smoky, yellow glare
of the lamps that swung above the tribune.  Vergniaud
faced him, dignified and calm.

"Your vote, Citizen?" and Dangeau, in clear, grave reply:

"Death, Citizen President."

Here there was nothing to tickle the waiting ears
above, and he passed down the steps again in silence,
whilst another succeeded him, and to that other another
yet.  All that long night, and all the next long day, the
voices never ceased.  Now they rang loud and full,
now low and hesitating; and after each vote came the
people's comment of applause, dissent, or silence.

Dangeau passed into one of the lower galleries
reserved for members and their friends.  His limbs were
cramped with the long session, and his throat was
parched and dry; coffee was to be had, he knew, and he
was in quest of it.  As he got clear of the thronged
entrance, a strange sight met his eye, for the gallery
resembled a box at the opera, infinitely extended.

Bare-necked women flashed their diamonds and their
wit, chattering, laughing, and exchanging sallies with
their friends.

Refreshments were being passed round, and Deputies
who were at leisure bowed, and smiled, and did the
honours, as if it were a place of amusement, and not a
hall of judgment.

A bold, brown-faced woman, with magnificent black
eyes, her full figure much accentuated by a flaring
tricolour sash, swept to the front of the gallery, and
looked down.  In her wake came a sleepy, white-fleshed
blonde, mincing as she walked.  She too wore the
tricolour, and Dangeau's lips curled at the desecration.

"Philippe is voting," cried the brown woman loudly.
"See, Jeanne, there he comes!"

Dangeau looked down, and saw Philippe Égalité,
sometime Philippe d'Orleans, prince of the blood and cousin
of the King, pass up the tribune steps.  Under the lamps
his face showed red and blotched, his eyes unsteady; but
he walked jauntily, twisting a seal at his fob.  His attire
bespoke the dandy, his manner the poseur.  Opposite to
Vergniaud he bowed with elegance, and cried in a voice
of loud effrontery, "I vote for Death."

Through the Assembly ran a shudder of recoil.
Natural feeling was not yet brayed to dust in the mortar
of the Revolution, and it thrilled and quickened to the
spectacle of kinsman rising against kinsman, and the old
blood royal of France turning from its ruined head
publicly, and in the sight of all men.

"It is good that Louis should die, but it is not good
that Philippe should vote for his death.  Has the man
no decency?" growled Danton at Dangeau's ear.

Long after, when his own hour was striking, Philippe
d'Orleans protested that he had voted upon his soul and
conscience—the soul whose existence he denied, and
the conscience whose voice he had stifled for forty years.
Be that between him and that soul and conscience, but,
as he descended the tribune steps, Girondin, Jacobin,
and Cordelier alike drew back from him, and men who
would have cried death to the King's cousin, cried none
the less, "Shame on Égalité!"

Only the bold brown woman and her companion
laughed.  The former even leaned across the bar and
kissed her hand, waving, and beckoning him.

Dangeau's gaze, half sardonically curious, half
disgusted, rested upon the scene.

"All posterity will gaze upon what is done this day," he
said in a low voice to Danton—"and they will see this."

"The grapes are trodden, the wine ferments, and the
scum rises," returned Danton on a deep, growling note.

"Such scum as this?"

"Just such scum as this!"

Below, one of the Girondins voted for imprisonment,
and the upper galleries hissed and rocked.

"Death, death, death!" cried the next in order.

"Death, and not so much talk about it!"

"Death, by all means death!"

The blonde woman, Jeanne Fresnay, was pricking off
the votes on a card.

"Ah—at last!" she laughed.  "I thought I should
never get the hundred.  Now we have one for banishment,
ten for imprisonment, and a hundred for death."

The brown Marguerite Didier produced her own card—a
dainty trifle tied with a narrow tricolour ribbon.

"You are wrong," she said—"it is but eight for
imprisonment.  You give him two more chances of life
than there is any need to."

"That's because I love him so well.  Is he not
Philippe's cousin?" drawled the other, making the
correction.

Philippe himself leaned suddenly between them.

"I should be jealous, it appears," he said smoothly.
"Who is it that you love so much?"

The bare white shoulders were lifted a little farther
out of their very scanty drapery.

"Eh—that charming cousin Veto of yours.  Since you
love him so well, I am sure I may love him too.  May I
not?"

Philippe's laugh was a little hoarse, though ready
enough.

"But certainly, chère amie," he said.  "Have I not
just proved my affection to the whole world?"

Mademoiselle Didier laughed noisily and caught him
by the arm.

"There, let him go," she said with impatience.  "At
the last he bores one, your good cousin.  We want more
bonbons, and I should like coffee.  It is cold enough to
freeze one, with so much coming and going."

Again Dangeau turned to his companion.

"An edifying spectacle, is it not?" he asked.

Danton shrugged his great shoulders.

"Mere scum and froth," he said.  "Let it pass.  I
want to speak to you.  You are to be sent on mission."

"On mission?"

"Why, yes.  You can be useful, or I am much mistaken.
It is this way.  The South is unsatisfactory.
There is a regular campaign of newspaper calumny going
on, and something must be done, or we shall have trouble.
I thought of sending you and Bonnet.  You are to make
a tour of the cities, see the principal men, hold public
meetings, explain our aims, our motives.  It is work
which should suit you, and more important than any
you could do in Paris at present."

Dangeau's eyes sparkled; a longing for action flared
suddenly up in him.

"I will do my best," he said in a new, eager voice.

"You should start as soon as this business is
over."  Danton's heavy brow clouded.  "Faugh!  It
stops us at every turn.  I have a thousand things to
do, and Louis blocks the way to every one.  Wait till
my hands are free, and you shall see what we will make
of France!"

"I will be ready," said Dangeau.

Danton had called for coffee, and stood gulping it as
he talked.  Now, as he set the cup down, he laid his hand
on Dangeau's shoulder a moment, and then moved off
muttering to himself:

"This place is stifling—the scent, the rouge.  What
do women do in an affair of State?"

In Dangeau's mind rose a vision of Aline de Rochambeau,
cool, delicate, and virginal, and the air of the
gallery became intolerable.  As he went out in Danton's
wake, he passed a handsome, dark-eyed girl who stared
at him with an inviting smile.  Lost in thought, he bowed
very slightly and was gone.  His mind was all at once
obsessed with the vision he had evoked.  It came upon
him very poignantly and sweetly, and yet—yet—that
vote of his, that irrevocable vote.  What would she say
to that?

Duty led men by strange ways in those strange days.
Only of one thing could a man take heed—that he should
be faithful to his ideals, and constant in the path which
he had chosen, even though across it lay the shadows of
disillusion and bitterness darkening to the final abyss.
There could be no turning back.

The dark girl flushed and bit an angrily twitching lip
as she stared after Dangeau's retreating figure.  When
Hébert joined her, she turned her shoulder on him, and
threw him a black look.

"Why did you leave me?" she cried hotly.  "Am I to
stand here alone, for any beast to insult?"

"Poor, fluttered dove," said Hébert, sneering.  He slid
an easy arm about her waist.  "Come then, Thérèse, no
sulks.  Look over and watch that fool Girondin yonder.
He 's dying, they say, but must needs be carried here to
vote for mercy."

As he spoke he drew her forward, and still with a
dark glow upon her cheeks she yielded.





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.. _`SEPARATION`:

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   CHAPTER XII


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   SEPARATION

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Rosalie Leboeuf sat behind her counter knitting.
Even on this cold January day the exertion
seemed to heat her.  She paused at intervals, and waved
the huge, half-completed stocking before her face, to
produce a current of air.  Swinging her legs from the
counter, and munching an apple noisily, was a handsome,
heavy-browed young woman, whose fine high colour and
bold black eyes were sufficiently well known and admired
amongst a certain set.  An atmosphere of vigour and
perfect health appeared to surround her, and she had
that pose and air which come from superb vitality and
complete self-satisfaction.  If the strait-laced drew their
skirts aside and stuck virtuous noses in the air when
Thérèse Marcel was mentioned, it was very little that
that young woman cared.

She and Rosalie were first cousins, and the respectable
widow Leboeuf winked at Thérèse's escapades, in
consideration of the excellent and spicy gossip which she
could often retail.

Rosalie was nothing if not curious; and just now there
was a very savoury subject to hand, for Paris had seen
her King strip to the headsman, and his blood flow in the
midst of his capital town.

"You should have been there, ma cousine," said
Thérèse between two bites of her apple.

"I?" said Rosalie in her thick, drawling way.  "I am
no longer young enough, nor slim enough, to push and
struggle for a place.  But tell me then, Thérèse, was
he pale?"

Thérèse threw away the apple core, and showed all
her splendid teeth in a curious feline mixture of laugh
and yawn.

"Well, so-so," she said lazily; "but he was calm
enough.  I have heard it said that he was all of a sweat
and a tremble on the tenth of August, but he did n't show
it yesterday.  I was well in front,—Heaven be praised,
I have good friends,—and his face did not even twitch
when he saw the steel.  He looked at it for a moment
or two,—one would have said he was curious,—and then
he began to speak."

Rosalie gave a little shudder, but her face was full of
enjoyment.

"Ah," she breathed, leaning forward a little.

"He declared that he died innocent, and wishing
France—nobody knows what; for Santerre ordered the
drums to be beaten, and we could not hear the rest.  I
owe him a grudge, that Santerre, for cutting the
spectacle short.  What, I ask you, does he imagine one goes
to the play in order to miss the finest part, and I with a
front place, too!  But they say he was afraid there would
be a rescue.  I could have told him better.  We are
not fools!"

"And then——?"

"Well, thanks to the drums, you couldn't hear; but
there was a whispering with the Abbé, and Sanson
hesitating and shivering like a cat with a wet paw and the
gutter to cross.  Everything was ready, but it seems he
had qualms—that Sanson.  The National Guards were
muttering, and the good Mère Garnet next to me began
to shout, 'Death to the Tyrant,' only no one heard her
because of Santerre's drums, when suddenly he bellowed,
'Executioner, do your duty!' and Citizen Sanson seemed
to wake up.  It was all over in a flash then; the Abbé
whispered once, called out loudly, and pchtt! down
came the knife, and off came the head.  Rose Lacour
fainted just at my elbow, the silly baggage; but for me,
I found it exciting—more exciting than the theatre.  I
should have liked to clap and call 'Encore!'"

Rosalie leaned back, fanning, her broad face a shade
paler, whilst the girl went on:

"His eyes were still open when Sanson held up the
head, and the blood went drip, drip, drip.  We were all
so quiet then that you could hear it.  I tell you that
gave one a sensation, my cousin!"

"Blood—ouf!" said Rosalie; "I do not like to see
blood.  I cannot digest my food after it."

"For me, I am a better patriot than you," laughed
Thérèse; "and if it is a tyrant's blood that I see, it
warms my heart and does it good."

A shudder ran through Rosalie's fat mass.  She lifted
her bulky knitting and fanned assiduously with it.

Her companion burst into a loud laugh.

"Eh, ma cousine, if you could see yourself!" she cried.

"It is true," said Rosalie, with composure, "I grow
stouter; but at your age, Thérèse, I was slighter than
you.  It is the same with us all—at twenty we are thin,
at thirty we are plump, and at forty—"  She waved
a fat hand over her expansive form and shrugged an
explanatory shoulder, whilst her small eyes dwelt with
a malicious expression on Thérèse's frowning face.

The girl lifted the handsomest shoulders in Paris.
"I am not a stick," she observed, with that ready flush
of hers; "it is these thin girls, whom one cannot see if
one looks at them sideways, who grow so stout later on.
I shall stay as I am, or maybe get scraggy—quel
horreur!"—and she shuddered a little—"but it will not
be yet awhile."

Rosalie nodded.

"You are not thirty yet," she said comfortably,
"and you are a fine figure of a woman.  'T is a pity
Citizen Dangeau cannot be made to see it!"

Up went Thérèse's head in a trice, and her bold
colour mounted.

"Hé!"—she snorted contemptuously—"is he the
world?  Others are not so blind."

There was a pause.  Rosalie knitted, smiling broadly,
whilst Thérèse caught a second apple from a piled
basket, and began to play with it.

"He is going away," said Rosalie abruptly, and
Thérèse dropped the apple, which rolled away into a
corner.

"Tctt, tctt," clicked Rosalie, "you have an open
hand with other folk's goods, my girl!  Yes, certainly
Citizen Dangeau is going away, and why not?  There
is nothing to keep him here that I know of."

"For how long?" asked Thérèse, staring out of the
window.

"One month, two, three—how do I know, my cabbage?
It is business of the State, and in such matters,
you should know more than I."

"When does he go?"

"To-morrow," said Rosalie cheerfully, for to torment
Thérèse was a most exhilarating employment, and
one that she much enjoyed.  It vindicated her own
virtue, and at the same time indulged her taste for
gossip.

Thérèse sprang up, and paced the small shop with
something wild in her gait.

"Why does he go?" she asked excitedly.  "He used
to smile at me, to look when he passed, and now he goes
another way; he turns his head, he elbows me aside.
Does he think I am one of those tame milk-and-water
misses, who can be taken up one minute and dropped
the next?  If he thinks that, he is very much mistaken.
Who has taken him from me?  I insist on knowing; I
insist that you tell me!"

"Chut," said Rosalie, with placid pleasure, "he never
was yours to take, and that you know as well as I."

"He looked at me," and Thérèse's coarse contralto
thrilled tragically over the words.

"Half Paris does that."  Rosalie paused and counted
her stitches.  "One, two, three, four, knit two together.
Why not? you are good to look at.  No one has denied
it that I know of."

"He smiled."  Her eyes glared under the close-drawn
brows, but Rosalie laughed.

"Not if you looked at him like that, I 'll warrant; but
as to smiling—he smiles at me too, dear cousin."

Thérèse flung herself into a chair, with a sharp-caught
breath.

"And at whom else?  Tell me that, tell me that, for
there is some one—some one.  He thinks of her, he
dreams of her, and pushes past other people as if they
were posts.  If I knew, if I only knew who it was——"

"Well?" said Rosalie curiously.

"I 'd twist her neck for her, or get Mme Guillotine to
save me the trouble," said Thérèse viciously.

As she spoke, the door swung open, and Mlle de
Rochambeau came in.  She had been out to make some
trifling purchase, and, nervous of the streets, she had
hurried a good deal.  Haste and the cold air had brought
a bright colour to her cheeks, her eyes shone, and her
breath came more quickly than usual.

Thérèse started rudely, and seeing her pass through
the shop with the air of one at home, she started up,
and with a quick spring placed herself between
Mademoiselle and the inner door.

For a moment Aline hesitated, and then, with a
murmured "Pardon," advanced a step.

"Who are you?" demanded Thérèse, in her roughest
voice.

Rosalie looked up with an expression of annoyance.
Really Thérèse and her scenes were past bearing, though
they were amusing, for a little.

"I am Marie Roche," said Mademoiselle quietly.  "I
lodge here, and work for my living.  Is there anything
else you would like to ask me?"

Thérèse's eyes flashed, and she gave a loud, angry
laugh.

"Eh—listen to her," she cried, "only listen.  Yes,
there is a good deal I should like to ask—amongst other
things, where you got that face, and those hands, if your
name is Marie Roche.  Aristocrat, that is what you
are—aristocrat!" and she pushed her flushed face close to
Mademoiselle's rapidly paling one.

"Chut, Thérèse!" commanded Rosalie angrily.

"I say she is an aristocrat," shouted Thérèse, swinging
round upon her cousin.

"Fiddlesticks," said Rosalie; "the girl's harmless, and
her name's her own, right enough."

"With that face, those hands?  Am I an imbecile?"

"Do I know, I?" and Rosalie shrugged her mountainous
shoulders.  "Bah, Thérèse, what a fuss about nothing.
Is it the girl's fault if her mother was pretty enough to
take the seigneur's fancy?"

The scarlet colour leapt into Mademoiselle's face.
The rough tones, the coarse laugh with which Rosalie
ended, and which Thérèse echoed, offended her
immeasurably, and she was far from feeling grateful for the
former's interference.  She pushed past her opponent,
and ran up the stairs without pausing to take breath.

Meanwhile Thérèse turned violently upon her cousin.

"Aristocrat or not, she has taken Dangeau from me,"
she screamed, with the sudden passion which makes her
type so dangerous.  "Why did you not tell me you had
a girl in the house?—though what he can see in such a
pinched, mincing creature passes me.  Why did you not
tell me, I say?  Why?  Why?"

"Eh, ma foi! because you fatigue me, you and your
tempers," said Rosalie crossly.  "Is this your house, par
exemple, that I must ask you before I take any one to
live in it?  If the man likes you, take him, and
welcome.  I am not preventing you.  And if he does n't
like you, what can I do, I?  Am I to say to him, 'Pray,
Citizen Dangeau, be careful you do not speak to any
girl, except my cousin Thérèse?'  It is your own fault,
not mine.  Why did n't you marry like a respectable
girl, instead of taking Heaven knows how many lovers?
Is it a secret?  Bah! all Paris knows it; and do you
think Dangeau is ignorant?  There was Bonnet, and
Hébert, and young Cléry, and who knows how many
since.  Ciel! you tire me," and Rosalie bent over her
knitting, muttering to herself, and picking fiercely at
dropped stitches.

Thérèse picked up an apple and swung it from one
hand to another, her brows level, the eyes beneath them
dangerously veiled.  Some day she would give herself
the pleasure of paying her cousin Rosalie out for that
little speech.  Some day, but not to-day, she would tear
those fat, creased cheeks with her nails, wrench out a
few of the sleek black braids above, sink strangling
fingers into the soft, fleshy rolls below.  She gritted her
teeth, and slipped the apple deftly to and fro.  Presently
she spoke in a tolerably natural voice:

"It is not every one who is so blind, voyez-vous, ma
cousine."

As she spoke, Dangeau came through the shop door.
He was in a hurry—these were days of hurry—and he
hardly noticed that Rosalie was not alone, until he found
Thérèse in his path.  She was all bold smiles, and a
glitter of black eyes, in a moment.

"The Citizen forgets an old friend."

"But no," he returned, smiling.

"It is so long since we met, that I thought the Citizen
might have forgotten me."

"Is it so long?" asked Dangeau innocently; "surely
I saw you somewhere lately.  Ah, I have it—at the
trial?"

"Ah, then you remember," cried Thérèse, clapping
her hands.

Dangeau nodded, rather puzzled by her manner, and
Rosalie permitted herself an audible chuckle.  Thérèse
turned on her with a flash, and as she did so Dangeau
bowed, murmured an excuse, and passed on.  This time
Rosalie laughed outright, and the sound was like a
spark in a powder-magazine.  Red rage, violent, uncontrollable,
flared in Thérèse's brain, and, all considerations
of prudence forgotten, she launched herself with a
tigress's bound straight at her cousin's ponderous form.

She had reckoned without her host.

Inside those fat arms reposed muscles of steel, behind
those small pig's eyes lay a very cool, ruthless, and
determined brain, and Thérèse felt herself caught, held,
propelled across the floor, and launched into the street,
all before she could send a second rending shriek after
her first scream of fury.

Rosalie closed and latched the door, and sank panting,
perspiring, but triumphant, into her seat again.

"Be calm," she observed, between her gasps; "be
wise, and go home.  For me, I bear no malice, but for
you, my poor Thérèse, you will certainly die in an
apoplexy some fine day if you excite yourself so much.
Ouf—how out of breath I am!"

Thérèse stood rigid, her face convulsed with fury, her
heart a black whirlpool of all the passions; but when
Rosalie looked up again, after a vigorous bout of fanning,
she was gone, and, with a sigh of relief, the widow
Leboeuf settled once more to her placid morning's work.

The past fortnight had gone heavily for Mlle de
Rochambeau.  Since the days of the votings she had not
seen Dangeau, for he had only returned late at night to
snatch a few hours' sleep before the earliest daylight
called him to his work again.  She heard his step upon
the stair, and turned from it, with something like a
shudder.  What times! what times!  For the
inconceivable was happening—the impossible had come to
pass.  What, was the King to die, and no one lift a
hand to help?  In open day, in his own capital?  Surely
there would be a sign, a wonder, and God would save the
King.  But now—God had not saved him—he was
dead.  All the previous day she had knelt, fasting,
praying, and weeping, one of many hundreds who did
likewise; but the knife had fallen, the blood royal was no
longer inviolate—it flowed like common water, and was
swallowed by the common earth.  A sort of numb terror
possessed Aline's very soul, and the little encounter with
Thérèse gave it a personal edge.

As she sat, late into the evening, making good her
yesterday's stint of embroidery, there came a footstep
and a knocking at her door, and she rose to open it,
trembling a little, and yet not knowing why she
trembled since the step was a familiar one.

Dangeau stood without, his face worn and tired, but
an eager light in his eyes.

"Will you spare me a moment?" he asked, motioning
to his open door.

"Is it about the copying?" she said, hesitating.

"The copying, and another matter," he replied, and
stood aside, holding the door for her to pass.  She
folded her work neatly, laid it down, and came silently
into his room, where she remained standing, and close
to the door.

Dangeau crossed to his table, asked her a trifling
question or two about the numbering of the thickly
written pages before him, and then paused for so long
a space that the constraint which lay on Mademoiselle
extended itself to him also, and rested heavily upon
them both.

"I am going away to-morrow," he said at last.

"Yes, Citizen."  It was her first word to him for
many days, and he was struck by the altered quality
of the soft tones.

They seemed to set him infinitely far away from her
and her concerns, and it was surprising how much that
hurt him.

Nevertheless he stumbled on:

"I am obliged to go; you believe that, do you not?"

"But, yes, Citizen."  More distant still the voice
that had rung friendly once, but behind the distance a
weariness that spurred him.

"You are very friendless," he said abruptly.  "You
said that I might be your friend, and the first thing
that I do is to desert you.  If I had been given a
choice—but one has obligations—it is a trust I cannot shirk."

"Monsieur is very good to trouble himself about me,"
said Mademoiselle softly.  "I shall be safe.  I am not
afraid.  See then, Citizen, who would hurt me?  I live
quietly, I earn my bread, I harm no one.  What has
any one so insignificant and poor as I to be afraid of?
Would any one trouble to harm me?"

"God forbid!" said Dangeau earnestly.  "Indeed, I
think you are safe, or I would not go.  In a month or
six weeks, I shall hope to be back again.  I do not
know why I should be uneasy."  He hesitated.  "If
there were a woman you could turn to, but there—my
mother died ten years ago, and I know of no one else.
But if a man's help would be of any use to you, you
could rely on Edmond Cléry—see, I will give you his
direction.  He is young, but very much my friend, and
you could trust him.  Show him this"—he held out
a small, folded note—"and I know he will do what
he can."

Mademoiselle's colour was a little tremulous.  His
manner had taken suddenly so intimate, so possessive,
a shade.  Only half-conscious that she had grown to
depend on him for companionship and safety, she was
alarmed at discovering that his talk of her being alone,
and friendless, could bring a lump into her throat, and
set her heart beating.

"Indeed, Monsieur, there is no need," she protested,
answering her own misgivings as much as his words.
"I shall be safe.  There is no one to harm me."

He put the note into her hand, and returned to the
table, where he paused, looking strangely at her.

"So young, so friendless," beat his heart, "so alone,
so unprotected.  If I spoke now, should I lose all?  Is
she old enough to have learned their accursed lesson of
the gulf between man and man—between loving man
and the woman beloved?  Surely she is too lonely not to
yearn towards shelter."  He made a half step towards
her, and then checked himself, turning his head aside.

"Mademoiselle," he said earnestly, "you are very
much alone in the world.  Your order is doomed—it
passes unregretted, for it was an evil thing.  I do not
say that every noble was bad, but every noble was
nourished in a system that set hatred between class
and class, and the outcome of that antagonism has been
hundreds of years' oppression, lust, starvation, a
peasantry crushed into bestiality by iniquitous taxes, and an
aristocracy, relieved of responsibility, grown callous to
suffering, sunk in effeteness and vice.  There is a future
now for the peasant, since the weight is off his back,
and his children can walk erect, but what future is
there for the aristocrat?  I can see none.  Those who
would survive, must out from their camp, and set
themselves to other ways of thought, and other modes of
life."  He paused, and glanced at her with a dawning
hope in his eyes.

Mademoiselle de Rochambeau raised her head a little,
proudly.

"Monsieur, I am of this order of which you speak,"
she said, and her voice was cold and still.

"You were of them, but now, where are they?  The
links that held you to them have been wrenched away.
All is changed and you are free—the daughter of the
new day of Liberty."

"Monsieur, one cannot change one's blood, one's race.
I am of them."

"But one can change one's heart, one's faith," he
cried hotly; and at that Mademoiselle's hand went to
her bosom, as if the pressure of it could check the
quick fluttering within.

"Not if one is Rochambeau," she said very low.

There was an instant's pause, whilst she drew a long
breath, and then words came to her.

"Do you know, Monsieur, that for seven hundred
years my people have kept their faith, and served the
King and their order?  In all those years there have
been many men whom you would call bad men—I do
not defend them—there have been cruel deeds done,
and I shudder at them, but the worst man of them all
would have died in torments before he would have
accepted life at the price of honour, or come out from
his order because it was doomed.  That I think is what
you ask me to do.  I am a Rochambeau, Monsieur."

Her voice was icy with pride, and behind its soft
curves, and the delicate colour excitement painted there,
her face was inexorably set.  The individuality of it
became as it were a transparent veil, through which
stared the inevitable attributes of the race, the hoarded
instinct of centuries.

Dangeau's heart beat heavily.  For a moment passion
flared hot within him, only to fall again before her
defenceless youth.  But the breath of it beat upon her
soul, and troubled it to the depths.  She stood waiting,
not knowing how to break the spell that held her
motionless.  Something warned her that a touch, a movement,
might unchain some force unknown, but dreadful.
It was as if she watched a rising sea—the long, long
heaving stretch, as yet unflecked with foam, where
wave after wave towered up as if about to break, yet
fell again unbroken.  The room was gone in a mist—there
was neither past nor future.  Only an eternal
moment, and that steadily rising sea.

Suddenly broke the seventh wave, the wave of Fate.

In the mist Dangeau made an abrupt movement.

"Aline!" he said, lifting his eyes to her white face.
"Aline!"

Mademoiselle de Rochambeau felt a tremor pass over
her; she was conscious of a mastering, overwhelming
fear.  Like something outside herself, it caught her heart,
and wrung it.

"No, no," said her trembling lips; "no, no."

With that he was beside her, catching her unresisting
hand.  Cold as ice it lay in his, and he felt it quiver.

"Oh, mon Dieu, are you afraid of me—of me?" he
cried, in a hoarse whisper.

She tried to speak, but could not; something choked
the sound, and she only stood there, mechanically focussing
all her energies in an effort to stop the shivering,
which threatened to become unbearable.

"Aline," he said again, "Aline, look at me."

He bent above her, nearer, till his face was on a level
with her own, and his eyes drew hers to meet them.
And his were full of all sweet and poignant things—love
and home, and trust, and protection—they were
warm and kind, and she so cold, and so afraid.  It
seemed as if her soul must go out to him, or be torn in
two.  Suddenly her fear of him had changed into fear of
her own self.  Did a Rochambeau mate thus?  She saw
the red steel, wet with the King's life, the steel weighted
by the word of this man, and his fellows.  She saw the
blood gush out and flow between them in a river of
separation.  To pass it she must stain her feet—must
stain her soul, with an uncleansable rust.  It could
not be—Noblesse oblige.

She caught her hand from his and put it quickly
over her eyes.

"No, no, no—oh no, Monsieur," she cried, in a
trembling whisper.

He recoiled at once, the light in his face dying out.

"It is no, for always?" he asked slowly.

She bent her head.

"For always, and always, and always?" he said again.
"All the years, all the ways wanting you—never reaching
you?  Think again, Aline."

She rested her hand against the door and took a step
away.  It was more than she could bear, and a blind
instinct of escape was upon her, but he was beside her
before she could pass out.

"Is it because I am what I am, Jacques Dangeau,
and not of your order?" he asked, in a sharp voice.

The change helped her, and she looked up steadily.

"Monsieur, one has obligations—you said it just now."

"Obligations?"

"And loyalties—to one's order, to one's King."

"Louis Capet is dead," he said heavily.

"And you voted for his death," she flashed at him,
voice and eye like a rapier thrust.

He raised his head with pride.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, I voted for his death."

"That is a chasm no human power can bridge," she
said, in a level voice.  "It lies between us—the King's
death, the King's blood.  You cannot pass to come to
me—I may not pass to come to you."

There was an infinite troubled loneliness behind the
pride in her eyes, and it smote him through his anger.

"Adieu, Mademoiselle," he said in a low, constrained
voice.  He neither touched her hand, nor kissed it, but
he bowed with as much proud courtesy as if he had been
her equal in pride of race.  "Adieu, Mademoiselle."

"Adieu, Monsieur."

She passed out, and heard the door close harshly
behind her.  It shut away—ah, what?  The
Might-have-been—the Forbidden—Eden perhaps?  She could not
tell.  Bewildered, and exhausted, she fell on her knees
in the dark by her narrow bed, and sobbed out all the
wild confusion of her heart.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DISTURBING INSINUATIONS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium

   DISTURBING INSINUATIONS

.. vspace:: 2

February came in dreary, and bleak, and went out
in torrents of rain.  For Aline de Rochambeau a
time of dull loneliness, and reaction, of hard grinding
work, and insufficient food.  She had to rise early, and
stand in a line with other women, before she could
receive the meagre dole of bread, which was all that
the Republic One and Indivisible would guarantee its
starving citizens.  Then home again, faint and weary,
to sit long hours, bent to catch the last, ultimate ray
of dreary light, working fingers sore, and tired eyes red,
over the fine embroidery for which she was so thankful
still to find a sale.

All these wasted morning hours had to be made up
for in the dusk and dark of the still wintry evenings.
With hands stiff and blue, she must thread the fine
needle, and hold the delicate fabric, working on, and on,
and on.  She did not sing at her work now, and the
silence lay mournfully upon her heart.

   |  "No tread on the stair, no passing step across the way.
   |  What slow, long days—what empty, halting evenings."
   |

Rosalie eyed her with a half-contemptuous pity in
those days, but times were too hard for the pity to
be more than a passing indulgence, and she turned to
her own comfortable meals without a pang.  Times
were hard, and many suffered—what could one do?

"For me, I do not see that things are changed so
wonderfully," sighed brown little Madeleine Rousse,
Rosalie's neighbour.

Mlle de Rochambeau and she were standing elbow
to elbow, waiting for the baker to open his doors, and
begin the daily distribution.

"We were hungry before, and we are hungry now.
Bread is as scarce, and the only difference is that there
are more mouths to feed."

Her small face was pinched and drawn, and she
sighed heavily, thinking of five clamouring children at
home.

"Eh, Madeleine," cried Louison Michel, wife of that
redoubtable Septembrist, Jean, the butcher.  "Eh, be
thankful that your last was not twins, as mine was.
There was a misfortune, if you like, and I with six
already!  And what does that great stupid oaf of mine
say but, 'Hé, Louison, what a pity it was not three!'  'Pity,'
said I, and if I had been up and about, I warrant
you I 'd have clouted him well; 'pity, indeed, and why?'  Well,
and what do you think—you 'd never guess.  'Oh,'
says he, with a great sheep's grin on his face, 'we might
have called them Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.'  And
there he stood as if he had said something clever.
My word!  If I was angry!  'The charming idea, my
friend,' I said.  'I who have to work for them, whilst you
make speeches at your section, what of me?  Take that,
and that,' said I, and I threw what was handy at
him—Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, indeed!"

Madeleine sighed again, but an impudent-faced girl
behind Aline whispered in her ear, "Jean Michel has
one tyrant from whom the Republic cannot free him!"

Louison's sharp ears caught the words, or a part of
them, and she turned with a swing that brought her
hand in a resounding slap upon the girl's plump cheek,
which promptly flamed with the marks of five bony
fingers.

"Eh—Ma'mselle Impudence, so a wife mayn't keep
her own husband in order?  Perhaps you 'd like to
come interfering?  Best put your fingers in some one
else's pies, and leave mine alone."

The girl sobbed angrily, and Louison emitted a vicious
little snort, pushing on a pace as the distribution began,
and the queue moved slowly forward.

A month before Mlle de Rochambeau would have
shrunk and caught her breath, but now she only looked,
and looked away.

At first these hours in the open street were a torture
to the sensitive, gently-bred girl.  Every eye that
lighted upon her seemed to be stripping off her disguise,
and she expected the tongue of every passer-by to
proclaim and denounce her.

After the shock of the September massacres, it was
impossible for her to realise that the greater part of
those she encountered were plain, hungry, fellow-creatures,
who cared little about politics, and much about
their daily bread, but after a while she found she was one
of a crowd—a speck, a dust mote, and that courage
of the crowd, that sloughing of the individual, began to
reassure her.  She lost the sensation of being alone,
the centre of observing eyes, and took her place as one
of the great city's humble workers, waiting for her share
of its fostering; and she began to find interest in the
scenes of tragedy and comedy which those hours of
waiting brought before her.  The long standing was
fatiguing, but without the fresh air and enforced
companionship of these morning hours, she would have
fared worse than she did.  Brains of coarser fibre than
hers gave way in those days, and the cells of the Salpêtrière
could tell a sadder tale than even the prisons of Paris.

One day of drenching rain, as she stood shivering,
her thin dress soaked, her hair wet and dripping, a
heavy-looking, harpy-eyed creature stared long and
curiously at her.  The wind had caught Aline's hair,
and she put up her slim hand smoothing it again.  As
she did so, the woman's eyes took a dull glare and she
muttered:

"Aristocrat."

Terror teaches the least experienced to dissemble,
and Mademoiselle had learned its lesson by now.  Her
heart bounded, but she managed a tolerably natural
shrug of the shoulders, and answered in accents modelled
on those of Rosalie:

"My good mother, I?  The idea!  I—but that
amuses me," and she laughed; but the woman gave a
sort of growl, shook her dripping head, and repeated
hoarsely:

"Aristocrat, aristocrat," in a sort of chant, whilst
the rain, following the furrows of the grimy, wrinkled
cheeks, gave her an expression at once bleared and
malignant.

"It is Mère Rabotin," said the woman at Mademoiselle's
side.  "She is a little mad.  They shot her
son last tenth of August, and since then she sees
aristocrats and tyrants everywhere."

The old woman threw her a wicked glance.

"In you, I see nothing but a fat cow, whose husband
beats her," she remarked venomously, and a laugh
ran down the line, for the woman crimsoned, and held
her tongue, being a rather stupid, garrulous creature
destined to be put out of action at once by a sharp
retort.

"But this"—pursued Mère Rabotin, fingering Mademoiselle's
shrinking hand—"this is an aristocrat's hand.
Fine and white, white and fine, and why, because it has
never worked, never worked as honest hands do, and
every night it has bathed in blood—ah, that is a famous
whiteness, mes amis!"

Mademoiselle drew her hand away with a shudder, but
recovering her self-possession, she held it up, still with
that careful laugh.

"Why, Mère Rabotin," she cried, "see how it is
pricked and worn.  I work it to the bone, I can tell you,
and get little enough even then."

"Aristocrat, aristocrat," repeated the hag, watching
her all the time.  "Fine white hands, and a black
heart—blue blood, and a light name—no mercy or pity.
Aristocrat!"

All the way it kept up, that half-mad drone.  The
women in front and behind shrugged impatient shoulders,
staring a little, but not caring greatly.

Mademoiselle kept up her pose, played the poor
seamstress, and played it well, with a sigh here, and
a laugh there, and all the time in her ears the one
refrain:

"Aristocrat, aristocrat!"

She came home panting, and lay on her bed listening
for she knew not what, for quite an hour, before she
could force her trembling fingers to their work again.
Next day she stayed indoors, and starved, but the
following morning hunger drove her out, and she went
shaking to her place in the line of waiting citizens.  The
woman was not there, and she never saw her again.
After awhile she ceased to feel alarmed.  The feeling of
being watched and stared at, wore off, and life settled
down into a dull monotony of work, and waiting.

It was in these days that Rosalie made up her quarrel
with Thérèse Marcel; and upon the reconciliation began
a gradual alteration in the elder woman's habits.  There
were long absences from the shop, after which she would
return flushed, and queer-eyed, to sit muttering over her
knitting, and these absences became more and more
frequent.

Mlle de Rochambeau, returning with her daily dole of
bread, met her one day about to sally forth.

Thérèse was with her, and saluted Mademoiselle with
a contemptuous laugh.

"Are you coming with us, Mlle White-face?" she called.

Aline shook her head with a civil smile.

"There are two women in to-day's batch—I have
been telling Rosalie.  She did n't mean to come, but
that fetched her.  She has n't seen a woman kiss
Madame Guillotine yet, but the men find her very
attractive, eh, Rosalie?"

Rosalie's broad face took on a dull flush, and her eyes
became suddenly restless.

"Eh, Marie," she said, in a queer, thick voice.
"Come along then—you sit and work all day, and in the
end you will be ill.  Every one must take a holiday some
time, and it is exciting, this spectacle; I can tell you it is
exciting.  The first time I was like you, I said no, I
can't, I can't; but see you, I could think of nothing else,
and at last, Thérèse persuaded me.  Then I sat, and
shivered—yes, like a jelly—and saw ten knives, and ten
heads, and half a dozen Citizen Sansons—but after that
it went better, and better.  Come, then, and see for
yourself, Marie," and she put a heavy hand on the
girl's shrinking shoulder.

White-faced, Aline recoiled.

"Oh, Citoyenne," she breathed, and shrank away.

Thérèse laughed loud.

"Oh, Citoyenne, Citoyenne," she mimicked.  "Tender
flower, pretty lamb, but the lamb's throat comes to the
butcher's knife all the same," and her eyes were wicked
behind their mockery.

"Have you heard any news of that fine lover of yours,
since he rode away," she went on.

"I have no lover," answered Mademoiselle, the blood
flaming into her thin cheeks.

"You are too modest, perhaps?" sneered Thérèse.

"I have not thought of such things."

"Such things—just hear her!  What? you have not
thought of Citizen Dangeau, handsome Citizen Dangeau,
and he living in the same house, and closeted with you
evening after evening, as our good Rosalie tells me?
Does one do such things without thinking?"

Mademoiselle's flush had faded almost as it had risen,
leaving her white and proud.

"Citoyenne, you are in error," she said quietly.  "I
am a poor girl with my bread to earn.  The Citizen
employed me to copy a book he had written.  He paid
well, and I was glad of the money."

"I dare say you were"—and Thérèse's coarse laugh
rang out—"so he paid you well, and for copying, for
copying—that was it, my pious Ste. Nitouche.  Copying?
Haha—I never heard it called that before!"

Mademoiselle turned haughtily away, only a deepening
of her pallor showed that the insult had reached her, but
Rosalie caught her cousin's arm with an impatient—"Tiens,
Thérèse, we shall be late, we shall not get
good places," and they went out, Thérèse still laughing
noisily.

"Vile, vile, shameless woman," thought Aline, as she
stood drawing long breaths before her open window.

The strong March wind blew in and seemed to fan her
hot anger and shame into a blaze.  "How dare she—how
dare she!"

Woman-like, she laid the insult to Dangeau's account.
It was another stone added to the wall which she set
herself night and day to build between them.  It rose
apace, and this was the coping-stone.  Now, surely, she
was safe.  Behind such a wall, so strong, so high, how
could he reach her?  And yet she was afraid, for
something moved in the citadel, behind the bastion of
defence—something that fluttered at his name, that ached in
loneliness, and cried in the night—a traitor, but her very
heart, inalienable flesh and blood of her.  She covered
her face, and wrestled, as many a time before, and after
awhile she told herself—"It is conquered," and with a
smile of self-scorn sat down again to her task too long
delayed.

Outside, Paris went its way.  Thousands were born,
and died, and married, and betrothed, in spite of scarce
bread, war on the frontiers, and prisons full to bursting.

The Mountain and the Gironde were only held from
one another's throats by Danton's strong hand; but
though their bickerings fill the historian's page, under
the surface agitation of politics, the vast majority of the
population went its own way, a way that varies very
little under successive forms of government, since the
real life of a people consists chiefly of those things about
which historians do not write.

Tragedy had come down and stalked the streets of
Paris, but there were thousands of eyes which did not see
her.  Those who did, talked loudly of it, and so it comes
that we see the times through their eyes, and not through
those of the silent and the blind.

In the south Dangeau made speech after speech.  He
wrote to Danton from Lyons:

.. vspace:: 2

"This place smoulders.  Words are apt to prove oil
on the embers.  There are 900 prisoners, and constant
talk of massacre.  Chalier is a firebrand, the Mayor one
of those moderate persons who provoke immoderate
irritation in others.  We are doing our best."

.. vspace:: 2

Danton frowned heavily over the curt sentences,
drawing those black brows of his into a wrathful line.
He turned to other letters from other Deputies, all
telling the same weary tale of jangle and discord, strife
and clamour of parties unappeased and unappeasable.
Soon he would be at death-grips with the Gironde—force
opposed to philosophy, action to eloquence, and
philosophic eloquence would go to the guillotine
shouting the Marseillaise.

His feet were set upon a bloody path, and one from
which there was no returning.  All Fate's force was
in him and behind him, and he drove before it to his
doom.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A DANGEROUS ACQUAINTANCE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium

   A DANGEROUS ACQUAINTANCE

.. vspace:: 2

It was in April that Fate began to concern herself with
Mlle de Rochambeau once more.  It was a day of
spring's first exquisite sweetness—air like new-born life
sparkling with wayward smiles, as the hurrying
sunbeams glanced between one white cloud and the next;
scent of all budding blossoms, and that good smell of
young leafage and the wet, fecund earth.

On such a day, any heart, not crushed quite dumb and
dry, must needs sparkle a little too, tremble a little
with the renewal of youth, and sing a little because
earth's myriad voices call for an echo.

Aline put on her worn print gown with a smile, and
twisted her hair with a little more care than usual.
After all, she was young, time passed, and life held
sunshine, and the spring.  She sang a little country air as
she passed to and fro in the narrow room.

Outside it was delicious.  Even in the dull street
where she took her place in the queue the air smelled of
young flowering things, and touched her cheeks with a
soft, kissing breath, that brought the tender colour into
them.  Under the bright cerulean sky her eyes took the
shade of dark forget-me-nots.

It was thus that Hébert saw her for the first time—one
of Fate's tricks—for had he passed on a dull, rainy,
day, he would have seen nothing but a pale, weary girl,
and would have gone his way unnoticing, and unremembered,
but to-day that spring bloom in the girl's heart
seemed to have overflowed, and to sweeten all the air
around her.  The sparkle of the deep, sweet, Irish eyes
met his cold, roving glance, and of a sudden changed it
to an ugly, intent glitter.  He passed slowly by, then
paused, turned, and passed again.

When he went by for the second time, Aline became
aware of his presence.  Before, he had been one of the
crowd, and she an unnoticed unit in it, but now, all at
once, his glance seemed to isolate her from the women
about her, and to set her in an insulting proximity to
himself.

She looked down, coldly, and pressed slowly forward.
After what seemed like a very long time, she raised her
eyes for a moment, only to encounter the same fixed,
insolent stare, the same pale smile of thick, unlovely
lips.

With an inward shudder she turned her head, feeling
thankful that the queue was moving at a good rate, and
that the time of waiting was nearly over.  It was not
until she had secured her portion that she ventured to
look round again, and, to her infinite relief, the coast was
clear.  With a sigh of thankfulness she turned homewards,
plunging her thoughts for cleansing into the fresh
loveliness of the day.

Suddenly in her ear a smooth, hateful voice:

"Why do you hurry so, Citoyenne?"

She did not look up, but quickened her pace.

"But, Citoyenne, a word—a look?"

Hébert's smile broadened, and he slipped a dexterous
arm about the slim waist, and bent to catch the blue
glance of her eyes.  Experience taught him that she
would look up at that.  She did, with a flame of
contempt that he thought very becoming.  Blue eyes were
apt to prove insipid when raised, but the critic in him
acknowledged these as free from fault.

"Citizen!" she exclaimed, freeing herself with an
unexpectedly strong movement.  "How dare you!  Oh,
help me, Louison, help me!"

In the moment that he caught her again she had
seen the small, wiry figure of Jean Michel's wife turn
the corner.

"Louison, Louison Michel!" she called desperately.

Next moment Hébert was aware of some one, under-sized
and shrivelled looking, who whirled tempestuously
upon him, with an amazing flow of words.

"Oh, my Ste. Géneviève!  And is a young girl not
to walk unmolested to her home.
Bandit! assassin! tyrant! pig! devil! species
of animal, go then—but on the
instant—and take that, and that, to remember an honest
woman by,"—the first "that" being a piece of his hair
torn forcibly out, and thrown into his perspiring face,
and the second, a most superlative slap on the opposite
cheek.

He was left gasping for breath and choking with fury,
whilst the whirlwind departed with as much suddenness
as it had come, covering the girl's retreat with shaken
fist, and shrill vituperation.

After a moment he sent a volley of curses in her
wake.  "Fury!  Magaera!" he muttered.  "So that is
Jean Michel's wife!  If she were mine, I 'd wring her
neck."

He thought of his meek wife at home, and laughed
unpleasantly.

"For the rest, she has done the girl no good by
interfering."  This was unfortunately the case.  Hébert's
eye had been pleased, his fancy taken; but a few passing
words, a struggle may be, ending in a kiss, had been all
that was in his thought.  Now the bully in him lifted
its head, urging his jaded appetite, and he walked slowly
after the women until he saw Mademoiselle leave her
companion, and enter Rosalie's shop.  An ugly gleam
came into his eyes—so this was where she lived!  He
knew Rosalie Leboeuf by sight and name; knew, too, of
her cousinship with his former mistress, Thérèse Marcel,
and he congratulated himself venomously as he strolled
forward and read the list of occupants which, as the law
demanded, was fixed on the front of the house at a
distance of not more than five feet from the ground:

.. vspace:: 2

"Rosalie Leboeuf, widow, vegetable seller, aged
forty-six.  Marie Roche, single, seamstress, aged nineteen.
Jacques Dangeau, single, avocat, aged twenty-eight,"—and
after the last name an additional notice—"absent
on business of the Convention."

.. vspace:: 2

Hébert struck his coarse hands together with an oath.
Dangeau—Dangeau, now it came back to him.  Dangeau
was infatuated with some girl, Thérèse had said so.
He laughed softly, for Thérèse had gone into one of her
passions, and that always amused him.  If it were this
girl?  If it were—if it only were, why, what a
pleasure to cut Dangeau out, and to let him find on his
return that the bird had flown to a nest of Hébert's
feathering.

There might be even more in it than that.  The girl
was no common seamstress; pooh—he was not stupid—he
could see as far into a brick wall as others.  Even at
the first glance he had seen that she was different, and
when her eyes blazed, and she drew herself from his
grasp, why, the aristocrat stood confessed.  Anger is the
greatest revealer of all.

Madame la Roturière may dress her smiling face in
the mode of Mme l'Aristocrate; may tune her company
voice to the same rhythm; but put her in a passion, and
see how the mud comes boiling up from the depths, and
how the voice so smooth and suave just now, rings out
in its native bourgeois tones.

Hébert knew the difference as well as another, and
his thoughts were busy.  Aristocrat disguised, spelled
aristocrat conspiring, and a conspiring aristocrat under
the same roof as Jacques Dangeau, what did that spell?

He rubbed his pale fat hands, where the reddish hair
showed sickly, and strolled away thinking wicked
thoughts.  Plots were the obsession of the day, and,
to speak the truth, there were enough and to spare, but
patriot eyes were apt to see double, and treble, when
drunk with enthusiasm, and to detect a conspirator
when there was only a victim.  Plots which had never
existed gave hundreds to the knife, and the populace
shouted themselves into a wilder delirium.

Did the price of bread go up?  Machinations of Pitt
in England.  Did two men quarrel, and blows pass?
"Monarchist!" shouted the defeated one, and presently
denounced the other.

Had a woman an inconvenient husband, why, a cry of
"Austrian Spy!" and she might be comfortably rid of
him for ever.

Evil times for a beautiful, friendless girl upon whom
gross Hébert cast a wishful eye!

He walked into the shop next day, and accosted
Rosalie with Republican sternness of manner.

"Good-day, Citoyenne Leboeuf."

Rosalie was fluttered.  Her nerves were no longer
quite so reliable as they had been.  Madame Guillotine's
receptions were disturbing them, and in the night
she would dream horribly, and wake panting, with her
hands at her fat throat.

"Citizen Hébert," she murmured.

He bent a cold eye upon her, noting a beaded brow.

"You have a girl lodging here—Marie Roche?"

"Assuredly, Citizen."

"I must speak to her alone."

Rosalie rallied a little, for Hébert had a certain
reputation, and Louison had not held her tongue.

"I will call her down," she said, heaving her bulky
form from its place.

"No, I will go up," said Hébert, still with magisterial
dignity.

"Pardon me, Citizen Deputy, she shall come down."

"It is an affair of State.  I must speak privately with
her," he blustered.

Rosalie's eyes twinkled; her nerves were steadying.
They had begun to require constant stimulation, and
this answered as well as anything else.

"Bah," she said.  "I shall not listen to your State
secrets.  Am I an eavesdropper, or inquisitive?  Ask
any one.  That is not my character.  You may take
her to the farther end of the shop, and speak as low as
you please, but, she is a young girl, this is a respectable
house, and see her alone in her room you shall not, not
whilst she is under my care."

"That privilege being reserved for my colleague,
Citizen Dangeau," sneered Hébert.

"Tchtt," said Rosalie, humping a billowy shoulder—"the
girl is virtuous and hard-working, too virtuous, I
dare say, to please some people.  Yes, that I can very
well believe," and her gaze became unpleasantly
pointed—"Well, I will call her down."

She moved to the inner door as she spoke, and called
up the stair: "Marie!  Marie Roche!  Descend then;
you are wanted."

Hébert stood aside with an ill grace, but he was
quite well aware that to insist might, after yesterday's
scene, bring the whole quarter about his ears, and
effectually spoil the ingenious plans he was revolving
in his mind.

He moved impatiently as Mademoiselle delayed, and,
at the sound of her footstep, started eagerly to meet
her.

She came in quite unsuspiciously, looking at Rosalie,
and at first seeing no one else.  When Hébert's
movements brought him before her, she turned deadly white,
and a faintness swept over her.  She caught the door,
fighting it back, till it showed only in that change of
colour, and a rather fixed look in the dark blue eyes.

Hébert checked a smile, and entrenched himself
behind his office.

"You are Marie Roche, seamstress?"

"Certainly, Citizen."

"Father's and mother's names?"

"By what right do you question me?" the voice was
icy with offence, and Rosalie stirred uneasily.

"It is the Citizen Deputy Hébert; answer him," she
growled—and Hébert commended her with a look.

Really this was amusing—the girl had spirit as well
as beauty.  Decidedly she was worth pursuing.

"Father's and mother's names?" he repeated.

Mademoiselle bit her lip, and gave the names she
had already given when she took out her certificate of
Citizenship.

They were those of her foster-parents, and had she
not had that rehearsal, she might have faltered, and
hesitated.  As it was, her answer came clear and
prompt.

Hébert scowled.

"You are not telling the truth," he observed in
offensive tones, expecting an outburst, but Mlle de
Rochambeau merely looked past him with an air of
weary indifference.

"I am not satisfied," he burst out.  "If you had
been frank and open, you would have found me a good
friend, but I do not like lies, and you are telling them.
Now I am not a safe person to tell lies to, not at
all—remember that.  My friendship is worth having, and
you may choose between it and my enmity, my virtuous
Citoyenne."

Mademoiselle raised her delicate eyebrows very
slightly.

"The Citizen does me altogether too much honour,"
she observed, her voice in direct contradiction to her
words.

"Tiens," he said, losing self-control, "you are a proud
minx, and pride goes before a fall.  Are you not afraid?
Come," dropping his voice, as he caught Rosalie's
ironical eye—"Come, be a sensible girl, and you shall
not find me hard to deal with.  I am a slave to beauty—a
smile, a pleasant look or two, and I am your friend.
Come then, Citoyenne Marie."

Mademoiselle remained silent.  She looked past
Hébert, at the street.  Rosalie got up exasperated, and
pulled her aside.

"Little fool," she whispered, "can't you make yourself
agreeable, like any other girl.  Smile, and keep
him off.  No one wants you to do more.  The man 's
dangerous, I tell you so, I——  You 'll ruin us all with
your airs and graces, as if he were the mud under your
feet."

Aline turned from her in a sudden despair.

"I am a poor, honest girl, Citizen," she said imploringly.
"I have no time for friendship.  I have to
work very hard, I harm nobody."

"But a friend," suggested Hébert, coming a little
closer, "a friend would feel it a privilege to do away
with that necessity for hard work."

Mademoiselle's pallor flamed.  She turned sharply
away, feeling as if she had been struck.

"Good-day, Citizen," she said proudly; "you have
made a mistake," and she passed from Rosalie's
detaining hand.

Hébert sent an oath after her.  He was most unmagisterially
angry.  "Fool," he said, under his breath—"Damned fool."

Rosalie caught him up.

"He is a fool who wastes his time trying to pick the
apple at the top of the tree, when there are plenty to
his hand," she observed pointedly.

He swore at her then, and went out without replying.

From that day a period of terror and humiliation
beyond words set in for Mlle de Rochambeau.  Hebert's
shadow lay across her path, and she feared him,
with a sickening, daily augmenting fear, that woke her
gasping in the night, and lay on her like a black
nightmare by day.

Sometimes she did not see him for days, sometimes
every day brought him along the waiting queue, until
he reached her side, and stood there whispering
hatefully, amusing himself by alternately calling the
indignant colour to her cheeks, and replacing it by a yet
more indignant pallor.

The strain told on her visibly, the thin cheeks were
thinner, the dark eyes looked darker, and showed
unnaturally large and bright, whilst the violet stains
beneath them came to stay.

There was no one to whom she could appeal.  Rosalie
was furious with her and her fine-lady ways.  Louison,
and the other neighbours, who could have interfered to
protect her from open insult, saw no reason to meddle
so long as the girl's admirer confined himself to words,
and after the first day Hébert had not laid hands on
her again.

The torture of the man's companionship, the insult
of his look, were beyond their comprehension.

Meanwhile, Hébert's passing fancy for her beauty
had changed into a dull, malignant resolve to bend, or
break her, and through her to injure Dangeau, if it
could possibly be contrived.

Women had their price, he reflected.  Hers might
not be money, but it would perhaps be peace of mind,
relief from persecution, or even life—bare life.

After the first few days he gave up the idea of
bringing any set accusation against Dangeau.  The man
was away, his room locked, and Rosalie would certainly
not give up the key unless a domiciliary visit were
paid—a thing involving a little too much publicity
for Hébert's taste.  Besides, he knew very well that
rummage as he might, he would find no evidence of
conspiracy.  Dangeau was an honest man, as he was
very well aware, and he hated him a good deal the
more for the inconvenient fact.  No, it would not do
to denounce Dangeau without some very plain evidence
to go upon.  The accuser of Danton's friend might
find himself in an uncommonly tight place if his
accusations could not be proved.  It would not do—it was
not good enough, Hébert decided regretfully; but the
girl remained, and that way amusement beckoned as
well as revenge.  If she remained obstinate, and if
Dangeau were really infatuated, and returned to find
her in prison, he might easily be tempted to commit
some imprudence, out of which capital might be made.
That was a safer game, and might prove just as well
worth playing in the end.  Meanwhile, was the girl
Marie Roche, and nothing more?  Did that arresting
look of nobility go for nothing, or was she playing a
part?  If Rosalie knew, Thérèse might help.  Now how
fortunate that he had always kept on good terms with
Thérèse.

He took her a pair of gold ear-rings that evening,
and whilst she set them dangling in her ears, he slipped
an arm about her, and kissed her smooth red cheek.

"Morbleu!" he swore, "you 're a handsome creature,
Thérèse; there 's no one to touch you."

"What do you want?" asked Thérèse, with a shrewd
glance into his would-be amorous eyes.

"What, ma belle?  What should I want?  A kiss, if
you 'll give it me.  Ah! the old days were the best."

Thus Hébert, disclaiming an ulterior motive.

Thérèse frowned, and twitched away from him.

"Ma foi, Hébert, am I a fool?" she returned, with a
shrug.  "You 've forgotten a lot about those same old
days if you think that.  I 'll help you if I can, but don't
try and throw sand in my eyes, or you 'll get some of
it back, in a way that will annoy you"; and her black
eyes flared at him in the fashion he always admired.
He thought her at her best like that, and said so now.

"Chut!" she said impatiently.  "What is it that
you want?"

Hébert considered.

"You see your cousin sometimes, the widow Leboeuf,
who has the shop in the rue des Lanternes?"

"I see her often enough, twice—three times a week
at present."

"Could you get something out of her?"

"Not if she knew I wanted to.  Close as a miser's
fist, that's what Rosalie is, if she thinks she can spite
you; but just now we are very good friends—and, well,
I dare say it might be done.  Depends what it is you
want to know."

Hébert looked at her keenly.

"Perhaps you can tell me," he said, watching her
face.  "That girl who lodges there, who is she?  What
is her name—her real name?"

In a flash Thérèse was crimson to the hair, and he
had her by the wrist, swinging her round to face him.

"Oho!" she cried, laughing till the new ear-rings
tinkled, "so that's it—that's the game?  Well, if you
can give that stuck-up aristocrat the setting-down I 've
promised her ever since I first saw her, I 'm with you."

Hébert pounced on one word, like a cat.

"Aristocrat?  Ah!  I thought so," he said, his breathing
quickening a little.  "Who is she, then, ma mie?"

Thérèse regarded him with a little scorn.  She did
not care who got Hébert, since she had done with him
herself, but what, *par exemple*, did he see in a pale
stick like that—and after having admired her, Thérèse?
Certainly men were past understanding.

She lolled easily on the arm of the chair.

"I 've not an idea, but I dare say I could find
out—that is, if Rosalie knows."

"Well, when you do, there 'll be a chain to match the
ear-rings," said Hébert, his arm round her waist again.

All the same, April had passed into May before
Thérèse won her chain.

It was in the time between that Hébert haunted
Mlle de Rochambeau's footsteps, and employed what
he considered his most seductive arts, producing only
a sensation of shuddering defilement from which neither
prayer nor effort could free her thoughts.  One day,
goaded past endurance, she left Dangeau's folded note
at the door of Cléry's lodging.  When it had left her
hand, she would have given the world to have it back.
How could she speak to a man of this shameful pursuit
of Hébert?  How, having put Dangeau out of her life,
could she use his help, and appeal to his friend?  And
yet, how endure the daily shame, the nightly agony of
remembering those smooth, poisonous whispers, that
pale, dreadful smile?  She cried her eyes red and swollen,
and Edmond Cléry, looking up from a bantering
exchange of compliments with Rosalie, wondered as she
came in, first if this could be she, and then at his friend's
taste.  He permitted himself a complacent memory
of Thérèse's glowing cheeks and supple curves, and
commended his own choice.  Rosalie's needles clicked
amiably.  She liked young men, and this was a
personable one.  What a goose this girl was, to be
sure!—like a frightened rabbit with Hébert, and now with this
amiable young man, shrinking, white-faced!  Bah! she
had no patience with her.

Edmond bowed smilingly.

"My homage, Citoyenne," he said.

Aline forced a "Bonjour, Citizen," and then fell
silent again.  Ah! why had she left the note—why,
why, why?

Cléry began to pity her plight, for there was something
chivalrous in him which rose at the sight of her
obvious unhappiness, and he gave the impulse rein.

"Will you not tell me how I can serve you?" he said
in his gentlest voice.  "It will be both a pleasure and
an honour."

Aline raised her tired eyes to his, and read kindness
in the open glance.

"You are very good," she said slowly, and looked past
him with a hesitating air.

Rosalie was busy serving at the moment, and a shrill
argument over the price of cabbage was in process.
She stepped closer, and spoke very low.

"Citizen Dangeau said I might trust you, Citizen."

"Indeed you may; I am his friend and yours."

Even then the colour rose a little at this linking of
their names.  The impulse towards confidence increased.

"I am in trouble, Citizen, or I should not have asked
your help.  There is a man who follows, insults me,
threatens even, and I am without a protector."

"Not if you will confide that honour to me," said
Cléry quickly.

She smiled faintly.

"You are very good."

"But who is it?  Tell me his name, and I will see
that you are not molested in future."

"It is the Citizen Deputy Hébert," faltered Aline, all
her terror returning as she pronounced the hateful name.

Clary's brows drew close, and a long whistle escaped
his lips.

"Oho, Hébert," he said,—"Hébert; but there, Citoyenne,
do not be alarmed, I beg of you.  Leave it
to me"; after which he made his adieux without
conspicuous haste, leaving Rosalie much annoyed at
having missed most of the conversation.

Two days later, Hébert came foaming in on Thérèse.
When he could speak, he swore at her.

"See here, Thérèse, if you 've a hand in setting Cléry
at me, let me warn you.  I 'll take foul play from no
woman alive, without giving as good as I get, and if
there 's any of your damned jealousy at work, you
she-devil, I 'll choke you as soon as look at you, and with a
great deal more pleasure!"

Thérèse stepped up to him and fixed her great black
eyes on his pale, twitching ones.

"Don't be so silly, Hébert," she said steadily, though
her colour rose.  "What is it all about?  What has
young Cléry done to you?  It 's rather late in the day
for you to start quarrelling."

"Did you flatter yourself it was about you?" said
Hébert brutally.  "Not much, my girl; I've fresher
fish to fry.  But he came up to me an hour ago, and
informed me he had been looking for me everywhere to
tell me my pursuit of that pattern of virtue, our good
Dangeau's mistress, must cease, or I 'd have him to
reckon with, and what I want to know is, have you a
hand in this, or not?"

Thérèse was heavily flushed, and her eyes curiously
veiled.

"What!  Cléry too?" she said in a deep whisper.
"Dangeau, and you, and Cléry.  Eh!  I wish her joy of
my cast-off clouts.  But she shall pay—Holy Virgin,
she shall pay!"

Hébert caught her by the shoulder and shook it.

"What are you muttering?  I ask you a plain
question, and you don't answer it.  What about
Cléry—did you set him on?"

She threw back her head at that, and gave a long,
wild laugh.

"Imbécile!" she screamed.  "I?  Do you hate him?
Well, think how I must love him when he too goes after
this girl—goes to her from me, from swearing I am his
goddess, his inspiration?  Ah!"—she caught at her
throat,—"but at least I can give you his head.  The
fool—the fool to betray a woman who holds his life in her
hands!  Here is what the imbecile wrote me only a week
ago.  Read, and say if it 's not enough to give him to
the embraces of the Guillotine?"

The paper she thrust at Hébert came from her bosom,
and when he had read it his dull eyes glittered.

"'The King's death a crime—perhaps time not ripe
for a Republic.'  Thérèse, you 're worth your weight
in gold.  I don't think Edmond Cléry will write you
any more love-letters."

Thérèse drew gloomily away.

"And the girl?" she asked, with a shiver.

"That, my dear, was to depend on what you could
find out about her," Hébert reminded her.

His own fury had subsided, and he threw himself into
a chair.  Thérèse made an abrupt movement.

"There is nothing more to find out.  I have it all."

"You 've been long enough getting it," said Hébert,
sitting up.

"Well, I have it now, and I told you all along that
Rosalie was more obstinate than a mule.  She has been
in one of her silent moods; she would go to all the
executions, and then, instead of being a pleasant
companion, there she would sit quite mum, or muttering to
herself.  Yesterday, however, she seemed excited.  There
was a large batch told off, three women amongst them,
and one of them shrieked when Sanson took her kerchief
off.  That seemed to wake Rosalie up.  She got quite
red, and began to talk as if she had a fever."

"It is one you have caught from her, then," said
Hébert impatiently.  "The news, my girl, the news!
What do I care for your cousin and her tantrums?"

Thérèse looked dangerous.

"Am I your cat's-paw, Hébert?" she said.  "Pah! do
your own dirty work—you 'll get no more from me."

Hébert cursed his impatience—fool that he was not
to remember Thérèse's temper!

He forced an ugly smile.

"Oh, well, as you please," he said.  "Let the girl go.
There are other fish in the sea.  Best let Cléry go too,
and then they can make a match of it, unless she should
prefer Dangeau."

His intent eyes saw the girl's face change at that.
"A thousand devils!" she burst out.  "Why do you
plague me, Hébert?  Be civil and play fair, and you 'll
get what you want."

"Come, come, Thérèse," he said soothingly.  "We
both want the same thing—to teach a stuck-up baggage
of an aristocrat a lesson.  Let's be friends again, and
give me the news.  Is it any good?"

"Good enough," said Thérèse, with a sulky look,—"good
enough to take her out of my way, if I say the
word.  Why, she 's a cousin of the ci-devant Montargis,
who got so prettily served on the third of September."

"What?" exclaimed Hébert.

"Ah! you never guessed that, and you 'd never have
got it out of Rosalie; for she 's as close as the devil, and I
believe has a sneaking fondness for the girl."

"The Montargis!" repeated Hébert, rubbing his
hands, slowly.  This was better than he expected.  No
wonder the girl went in terror!  He had heard the Paris
mob howl for the blood of the Austrian spy, and he
knew that a word now would seal her fate.

"Her name?" he demanded.

"Rochambeau—Aline de Rochambeau.  She only
clipped the tail off, you see, and with a taste that way,
she should have no objection to a head clipping—eh, my
friend?" said Thérèse, with a short laugh.

Hébert went off with his plans made ready to his
hand.  It pleased him to be able to ruin Cléry, since
Cléry had crossed his path; and besides, it would terrify
the girl, and annoy Dangeau, who had a liking for the
boy.  It was inconceivable that he should have been so
imprudent as to trust a woman like Thérèse, but since
he had been such a fool he must just pay for it with his
head.

The truth was that Cléry during his service at the
Temple had been strangely impressed, like many another,
by the bearing of the unfortunate Royal Family, and
had conceived a young, whole-hearted adoration for the
Queen, which did not, unfortunately for himself,
interfere with his wholly mundane passion for Thérèse
Marcel.  In a moment of extraordinary imprudence
he made the latter his confidante, never doubting that
her love for himself would make her a perfectly safe
one.  Poor lad! he was to pay a heavy price for his
trust.

On the day following Hébert's interview with Thérèse
he was arrested, and after a short preliminary examination,
which revealed to him her treachery and his
dangerous position, he was lodged in the Abbaye.

His arrest made some little stir in his own small
world.  Thérèse herself brought the news of it to the
rue des Lanternes.  Her eyes were very bright and
hard as she glanced round the shop, and she laughed
louder than usual, as she threw out broad hints as to her
own share in the matter, for she liked Rosalie to know
her power.

"I think you are a devil, Thérèse," said the fat woman
gloomily.

"So others have said," returned Thérèse, with a
wicked smile.

Mlle de Rochambeau took the blow in deadly silence.
Hope was dead in her heart, and she prayed earnestly
that she alone might suffer, and not have the wretchedness
of feeling she had drawn another into the net
which was closing around her.

Hébert dallied yet a day or two, and then struck
home.  Aline was hurrying homewards, her ears
strained for the step she had grown to expect, when
all in a minute he was there by her side.

She turned on him with a sudden resolve.

"Citizen," she said earnestly, "why do you
persecute me?  What have I done to you—to any
one?  Surely by now you realise that this pursuit is
useless?"

"The day that I realise that will be a bad day for
you," said Hébert, with malignant emphasis.

The threat brought her head up, with one of those
movements of mingled pride and grace which made him
hate and covet her.

"I have done no wrong—what harm can you do me?"
she said steadily.

"I have interest with the Revolutionary Tribunal—you
may have heard of the arrest of our young friend
Cléry?  Ah!  I thought so,"—as her colour faded under
his cruel gaze.

She shrank a little, but forced her voice to composure.
"And does the Revolutionary Tribunal concern itself
with the affairs of a poor girl who only asks to be allowed
to earn her living honestly?"

Hébert smiled—a smile so wicked that she realised an
impending blow, and on the instant it fell.

"It would concern itself with the affairs of Mlle de
Rochambeau, cousin of the ci-devant Marquise de
Montargis, who, if my memory serves me right, was
arrested on a charge of treasonable correspondence with
Austria, and who met a well-deserved fate at the hands
of an indignant people."  He leaned closer as he spoke,
and marked the instant stiffening of each muscle in the
white face.

For a moment her heart had stopped.  Then it
raced on again at a deadly speed.  She turned her head
away that he might not see the terror in her eyes,
and a keen wind met her full, clearing the faintness
from her brain.

She walked on as steadily as she might, but the smooth
voice was still at her ear.

"You are in danger.  My friendship alone can save
you.  What do you hope for?  The return of your
lover Dangeau?  I don't think I should count on that
if I were you, my angel.  Once upon a time there was
a young man of the name of Cléry—Edmond Cléry to
be quite correct—yes, I see you know the story.  No,
I don't think your Dangeau will be of any assistance
to you when I denounce you, and denounce you I most
certainly shall, unless you ask me not to, prettily, with
your arms round my neck, shall we say—eh, Citoyenne
Marie?"

As he spoke there was a rumble of wheels, and a rough
cart came round the corner towards them.  He touched
her arm, and she looked up mechanically, to see that it
held from eight to ten persons, all pinioned, and through
her own dull misery she was aware of pity stirring at her
heart, for these were prisoners on their way to the Place
de la Revolution.

One was an old man, very white and thin, his scanty
hair straggling above a stained, uncared-for coat, his
misty blue eyes looking out at the world with the
unseeing stare of the blind or dying.  Beside him leaned a
youth of about fifteen, whose laboured breath spoke of
the effort by which he preserved an appearance of calm.
Beyond them was a woman, very handsome and upright.
Her hair, just cut, floated in short, ragged wisps
about her pale, set face.  Her lips moved constantly, her
eyes looked down.  Hébert laughed and pointed as the
cart went by.

"That is where you 'll be if I give the word," he
whispered.  "Choose, then—a place there, or a place
here,"—and he made as if to encircle her with his
arm,—"choose, ma mie."

Aline closed her eyes.  All her young life ran hotly in
her veins, but the force of its recoil from the man beside
her was stronger than the force of its recoil from death.

"The Citizen insults me when he assumes there is a
choice," she said, with cold lips.

"The prison is so attractive then?  The embraces of
the Guillotine so preferable to mine—hein?"

"The Citizen has expressed my views."

Hébert cursed and flung away, but as she moved on
he was by her side again.

"After all," he said, "you may change your mind
again.  Until to-morrow, I can save you."

"Citizen, I shall never change my mind.  There is no
choice; it is simply that."

An inexorable decision looked from her face, and
carried conviction even to him.

"One cannot save imbeciles," he muttered as he left
her.

Mademoiselle walked home with an odd sense of
relief.  Now that the first shock was over, and the danger
so long anticipated was actually upon her, she was calm.
At least Hébert would be gone from her life.  Death
was clean and final; there would be no dishonour, no
soiling of her ears by that sensual voice, nor of her eyes
by those evil glances.

She knelt and prayed for a while, and sat down to her
work with hands that moved as skilfully as before.

That night she slept more peacefully than she had
done for weeks.  In her dreams she walked along a
green and leafy lane, birds sang, and the sky burned
blue in the rising sun.  She walked, and breathed
blissful air, and was happy.

Out of such dreams one awakes with a sense of the
unreality of everyday life.  Some of the glamour clings
about us, and we see a mirage of happiness instead of
the sands of the Desert of Desolation.  Is it only mirage,
or some sense sealed, except at rarest intervals?—a
sense before whose awakened exercise the veil wears
thin, and from behind we catch the voices of the
withdrawn, we feel the presence of peace, and garner a little
of the light of Eternity to shed a glow on Time.

Aline woke happily to a soft May dawn.  Her dream
lay warm against her heart and cherished it.

In the evening she was arrested and taken to the
prison of the Abbaye.





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.. _`SANS SOUCI`:

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   CHAPTER XV


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   SANS SOUCI

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In after days Aline de Rochambeau looked back upon
her time in prison as a not unpeaceful interlude
between two periods of stress and terror.  After
loneliness unspeakable, broken only by companionship with
the coarse, the dull, the cruel, she found herself in the
politest society of France, and in daily, hourly contact
with all that was graceful, exquisite, and refined in
her own sex,—gallant, witty, and courteous in the
other.

When she joined the other prisoners on the morning
after her arrest, the scene surprised her by its resemblance
to that ill-fated reception which had witnessed at once
her debut and her farewell to society.  The dresses were
a good deal shabbier, the ladies' coiffures not quite so
well arranged, but there was the same gay, light talk,
the same bowing and curtsying, the same air of high-bred
indifference to all that did not concern the polite arts.

All at once she became very acutely conscious of her
bourgeoise dress and unpowdered hair.  She felt the
roughness of her pricked fingers, and experienced that
painful sense of inferiority which sometimes afflicts
young girls who are unaccustomed to the world.  The
sensation passed in a flash, but the memory of it stung
her not a little, and she crossed the room with her head
held high.

The old Comtesse de Matigny eyed her through a
tortoise-shell lorgnette which bore a Queen's cipher in
brilliants, and had been a gift from Marie Antoinette.

"Who is that?" she demanded, in her deep, imperious tones.

"Some little bourgeoise, accused of Heaven knows
what," shrugged M. de Lancy.

The old lady allowed hazel eyes which were still
piercing to rest for a moment longer on Aline.  Then
they flashed mockingly on M. le Marquis.

"My friend, you are not as intelligent as usual.  Did
you see the girl's colour change when she came in?
When a bourgeoise is embarrassed, she hangs her head
and walks awkwardly.  If she had an apron on, she
would bite the corner.  This girl looked round, and
flushed,—it showed the fine grain of her skin,—then up
went her head, and she walked like a princess.  Besides,
I know the face."

A slight, fair woman, with tired eyes which looked as
if the colour had been washed from them by much
weeping, leaned forward.  She was Mme de Créspigny,
and her husband had been guillotined a fortnight before.

"I have seen her too, Madame," she said in an uninterested
sort of way, "but I cannot recall where it was."

Mme la Comtesse rapped her knee impatiently with
a much-beringed hand.

"It is some one she reminds me of," she said at
last—"some one long ago, when I was younger.  I never
forget a face, I always prided myself on that.  It was at
Court—long ago—those were gay days, my friends.
Ah!  I have it.  La belle Irlandaise, Mlle Desmond,
who married—  Now, who did Mlle Desmond marry?
It is I who am stupid to-day.  It is the cold, I think."

"Was it Henri de Rochambeau?" said De Lancy.

She nodded vivaciously.

"It was—yes, that was it, and I danced at their
wedding, and dreamed on a piece of the wedding-cake.
I shall not say of whom I dreamed, but it was not of
feu M. le Comte, for I had never seen him then.  Yes,
yes, Henri de Rochambeau, and la belle Irlandaise.
They were a very personable couple, and why they saw
fit to go and exist in the country, Heaven alone
knows—and perhaps his late Majesty, who did Mme de
Rochambeau the honour of a very particular admiration."

"And she objected, chère Comtesse?"  De Lancy's
tone was one of pained incredulity.

Chère Comtesse shrugged her shoulders delicately.

"What would you?" she observed.  "She was as
beautiful as a picture, and as virtuous as if Our Lady
had sat for it.  It even fatigued one a little, her virtue."

Her own had bored no one—she had not permitted it
any such social solecism.

"I remember," said De Lancy; "they went down to
Rochambeau, and expired there of dulness and each
other's unrelieved society."

Mme de Créspigny had been looking attentively at
Aline.  "Now I know who the girl is," she said.  "It
is the girl who disappeared, who was supposed to have
been massacred.  I saw her at Laure de Montargis'
reception the day of the arrests, and I remember her
now.  Ah! that poor Laure——"

She shuddered faintly.  De Lancy became interested.

"But she accompanied her cousin to La Force and
perished there."

"She must have escaped.  I am sure it is she.  She
had that way of holding her head—like a stag—proud
and timid."

"It was one of her mother's attractions," said the
Comtesse.  "Mlle Desmond was, however, a great deal
more beautiful.  Her daughter, if this girl is her
daughter, has only that trick, and the eyes—yes, she has the
lovely eyes," as Aline turned her head and looked in
their direction.  "M. de Lancy, do me the favour of
conducting her here, and presenting her to me."

The little old dandy clicked away on his high heels,
and in a moment Mademoiselle was aware of a truly
courtly bow, whilst a thin, shaky voice said gallantly:

"We rejoice to welcome Mademoiselle to our society."

She curtsied—a graceful action—and Madame de
Matigny watching, nodded twice complacently.
"Bourgeoise indeed!" she murmured, and pressed her lips
together.

"You are too good, Monsieur," said Mademoiselle.

Only four words, but the voice—the composure.

"Madame la Comtesse is right, as always; she is
certainly one of us," thought De Lancy.

"Madame la Comtesse de Matigny begs the honour of
your acquaintance," he pursued; "she had the pleasure
of knowing your parents."

"Monsieur?"

"Do I not address Mlle de Rochambeau?"

Surprise, and a sense of terror at hearing her name,
so long concealed, brought the colour to her face.

"That is my name," she murmured.

"She is always right—she is wonderful," repeated the
Marquis to himself, as he piloted his charge across the
room.

He made the presentation in form.

"Madame la Comtesse, permit that I present to you
Mademoiselle de Rochambeau."

Aline bent to the white, wrinkled hand, but was raised
and embraced.

"You resemble your mother too closely to be mistaken
by any one who had the happiness of her acquaintance,"
said a gracious voice, and thereon ensued a whole series
of introductions.  "M. le Marquis de Lancy, who also
knew your parents."

"Mme de Créspigny, my granddaughter Mlle Marguerite
de Matigny."

A delightful sensation of having come home to a place
of safety and shelter came over Aline as she smiled and
curtsied, forgetting her poor dress and hard-worked
fingers in the pleasure of being restored to the society
of her equals.

"Sit down here, beside me," commanded Mme de
Matigny.  She had been a great beauty as well as a
great lady in her day, and she spoke with an imperious
air that fitted either part.  "Marguerite, give
Mademoiselle your stool."

Aline protested civilly, but Mlle Marguerite, a little
dark-eyed creature, with a baby mouth, dropped a soft
whisper in her ear as she rose:

"Grandmamma is always obeyed—but on the
instant," and Aline sat down submissively.

"And now, racontez donc, mon enfant, racontez,"
said the old lady, "where have you been all these months,
and how did you escape?"

Embarrassing questions these, but to hesitate was out
of the question.  That would at once point to necessity
for concealment.  She began, therefore, and told her
story quite simply, and truly, only omitting mention of
her work with Dangeau.

Mme de Matigny tapped her knee.

"But, enfin, I do not understand.  What is all this?
Why did you not appeal to your cousin's friends, to
Mme de St. Aignan, or Mme de Rabutin, for example?"

"I knew only the names, Madame," said Aline,
lifting her truthful eyes.  "And at first I thought all
had perished.  I dared not ask, and there was no one
to tell me."

"Poor child," the hand stopped tapping, and patted
her shoulder kindly.  "And this Rosalie you speak of,
what was she?"

"Sometimes she was kind.  I do not think she meant
me any harm, and at least she saved my life once."

When she came to the story of her arrest, she faltered
a little.  The old eyes were so keen.

"What do they accuse you of?  You have done nothing?"

"Oh, chère Comtesse, is it then necessary that one
should have done anything?" broke in Adèle de Créspigny,
a little bitter colour in that faded voice of hers.
"Have you done anything, or I, or little Marguerite here?"

Madame fanned herself, her manner slightly distant.
She was not accustomed to be interrupted.

"They say I wrote letters to emigrés, to my son
Charles, in fact.  Marguerite also.  It is a crime, it
appears, to indulge in family feeling.  But, you, you,
Mademoiselle, did not even do that."

"No," said Aline, blushing.  "It was ... it was that
the Citizen Hébert found out my real name—I do not
know how—and denounced me."

Her downcast looks filled in enough of the story
for those penetrating eyes.

"Canaille!" said the old lady under her breath, and
then aloud:

"You are better here, with us.  It is more
convenable," and once more she patted the shoulder, and
that odd sense of being at home brought sudden tears to
Aline's eyes.

A few days later a piece of news reached her.  She
and Marguerite de Matigny sat embroidering the same
long strip of silk.  They had become close friends in the
enforced daily intimacy of prison life, and the luxury
of possessing a friend with whom she could revive the
old, innocent, free talk of convent times was delightful
in the extreme to the lonely girl, forced too soon into
a self-reliance beyond her years.

Mlle Marguerite looked up from the brilliant half-set
stitch, and glanced warily round.

"Tiens, Aline," she said, putting her small head on
one side, "I heard something this morning, something
that concerns you."

Aline grew paler.  That all news was bad news was
one axiom which the events of the last few months had
graved deeply on her heart.  Marguerite saw the tremor
that passed over her, and made haste to be reassuring.

"No, no, ma belle, it is nothing bad.  Stupid that I
am!  It is that these wretches outside have been
fighting amongst themselves, and your M. Hébert has been
sent to prison.  I hope he likes it," and she took a little
vicious stitch which knotted her yellow thread, and
confused the symmetrical centre of a most gorgeous
flower.  "There, I have tangled my thread again, and
grandmamma will scold me.  I shall say it was the fault
of your M. Hébert."

"Please don't call him *my* M. Hébert," said Aline
proudly.  Marguerite laid down her needle.

"Aline, why did he denounce you?"

"Ah, Marguerite, don't talk of him.  You don't know
what a wretch—" and she broke off shuddering.

"No, but I should like to know.  I can see you could
tell tales—oh, but most exciting ones!  Why did he do
it?  He must have had some reason; or did he just see
you, and hate you, like love at first sight, only the other
way round?"

Mlle de Rochambeau assumed an air of prudence and reproof.

"Fi donc, Mlle de Matigny, what would your grandmother
say to such talk?"

Marguerite made a little, wicked *moue*.

"She would say—it was not convenable," she mimicked,
and laid a coaxing hand on her friend's knee.
"But tell me then, Aline, tell me what I want to know—tell
me all about it, all there is to tell.  I shall tease and
tease until you do," she declared.

"Oh, Marguerite, it is too dreadful to laugh about."

"If one never laughed, because of dreadful things,
why, then, we should all forget how to do it nowadays,"
pouted Marguerite.  "But, see then, already I cry—"
and she lifted an infinitesimal scrap of cambric to her
dancing eyes.

Mlle de Rochambeau laughed, but she shook her
head, and Marguerite gave her a little pinch.

"Wicked one," she said; "but I shall find out all the
same.  All my life I have found out what I wanted to,
yes, even secrets of grandmamma's," and she nodded
mischievously; but Aline turned back to the original
subject of the conversation.

"Are you sure he is in prison?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes, yes, quite sure.  The Abbé Loisel said so when
he came this morning.  I heard him say to
grand-mamma, 'The wolves begin to tear each other.  It is
a just retribution.'  And then he said, 'Hébert, who
edits that disgrace to the civilised world, the *Père
Duchesne*, is in prison.'  Oh, Aline, would n't it have
been fun if he had been sent here?"

Aline's hand went to her heart.

"Oh, mon Dieu!" she said quickly.

Marguerite made round baby eyes of wonder.

"You *are* frightened of him," she cried.  "He must
have done, or said, something very bad to make you
look like that.  If you would tell me what it was, I
should not have to go on worrying you about him, but
as it is, I shall have to make you simply hate me.  I
know I shall," she concluded mournfully.

"Oh, child, child, you don't understand," cried Mlle
de Rochambeau, feeling suddenly that her two years of
greater age were twenty of bitter experience.  Her eyes
filled as she bent her burning face over the embroidery,
whilst two large tears fell from them and lay on the
petals of her golden flower like points of glittering
dew.

Marguerite coloured, and looked first down at the
floor and then up at her friend's flushed face.

"Oh, Aline!" she breathed, "was it really that?  Oh,
the wretch!  And when you wouldn't look at him he
revenged himself?  Ouf, it makes me creep.  No
wonder you feel badly about it.  The villain!" she
stamped a childish foot, and knotted her thread again.

"Oh dear, it will have to be cut," she declared, "and
what grandmamma will say, the saints alone know."

Aline took the work out of the too vehement hands,
and spent five minutes in bringing order out of a sad
confusion.  "Now it is better," she said, handing it
back again; "you are too impatient, little one."

"Ah, 'twas not my fault, but that villain's.  How
could I be calm when I thought of him?  But you are
an angel of patience, ma mie.  How can you be so
quiet and still when things go wrong?"

"Ah," said Mademoiselle with half a sigh, "for
eight months I earned my living by my work, you know,
and if I had lost patience when my thread knotted I
should have had nothing to eat next day, so you see
I was obliged to learn."

Mme de Matigny came by as she ended, and both
girls rose and curtsied.  She glanced at the work,
nodded her head, and passed on, on M. de Lancy's arm.
For the moment chattering Marguerite became decorous
Mlle de Matigny—a *jeune fille, bien élevée*.  In her
grandmother's presence only the demurest of glances
shot from the soft brown eyes, only the most dutiful
and conventional remarks dropped from the pretty,
prudish lips—but with Aline, what a difference!  Now,
the stately passage over, she leaned close again above
the neglected needle.

"Dis donc, Aline!  You were betrothed, were you
not, to that poor M. de Sélincourt?  Were you
inconsolable when he was killed?  Did you like him?"

The ambiguous "aimer" fell from her lips with a
teasing inflection.

"He is dead," reproved Mlle de Rochambeau.

"Tiens, I did not say he was alive!  But did you;
tell me?  What did it feel like to be betrothed?"

"Ask Mme de Matigny what is the correct feeling
for a young girl to have for her betrothed," said Aline,
a hint of bitterness behind her smile.

"De grêce!" and Marguerite's plump hands went up
in horror.  "See then, Aline, I think it would be nice
to love—really to love—do you not think so?"

Mlle de Rochambeau shook her head with decision.
Something in the light words had stabbed her, and she
felt an inward pain.

"I do not see why one should not love one's
husband," pursued Marguerite reflectively.  "If one has
to live with some one always, it would be far more
agreeable to love him.  But it appears that that is a very
bourgeoise idea, and that it is more convenable to love
some one else."

"Oh, Marguerite!"

"Yes, yes, I tell you it is so!  Here one hears
everything.  They cannot send one out of the room when
the conversation begins to grow interesting.  There is
Mme de Créspigny—she is in our room—she weeps
much in the night, but it is not because of her husband,
oh no; it is for M. le Chevalier de St. Armand, who was
guillotined on the same day."

"Hush, Marguerite, you should not say such things."

"But if they are true, and this is really true, for
when they brought her the news she cried out 'Etienne'
very loud, and fainted.  M. de Créspigny was our cousin,
so I know all his names.  There is no Etienne amongst
them," and she nodded wisely.

"Oh, Marguerite!"

"So you see it is true.  I find that odious, for my
part, though, to be sure, what could she do if she loved
him?  One cannot make oneself love or not love.  It
comes or it goes, and you can only weep like Mme de
Créspigny, unless, to be sure, one could make shift to
laugh, as I think I shall try to do when my time comes."

Mlle de Rochambeau looked up with a sudden flame
in her eyes.

"It is not true that one cannot help loving," she said
quickly.  "One can—one can.  If it is a wrong love
it can be crushed, and one forgets.  Oh, you do not
know what you are talking about, Marguerite."

Marguerite embraced her.

"And do you?" she whispered slyly.

Girls' talk—strange talk for a prison, and one where
Death stood by the entrance, beckoning one and another.

One day it was M. de Lancy who was called away in
the midst of a compliment to his "Chère Comtesse,"
called to appear at Fouquier Tinville's bar, and later,
at that of another and more merciful Judge.

The next, Mme de Créspigny's tired eyes rested for
the last time upon prison walls, and she went out
smiling wistful good-byes, to follow husband and lover
to a world where there is neither marrying nor giving
in marriage.

As each departed, the groups would close their ranks,
and after a moment's pause would talk the faster and
more lightly, until once more the summons came, and
again one would be taken and one left.

This was one side of prison society.  On the other
a group of devout persons kept up the forms of convent
life, just as the coterie of Mme de Matigny did those
of the salon.  The Abbé de Nérac, the Abbé Constantin,
and half a dozen nuns were the nucleus of this second
group, but not all were ecclesiastics or religious.  M. de
Maurepas, the young soldier, with the ugly rugged face
and good brown eyes, was of their number, and devout
ladies not a few, who spent their time between encouraging
one another in the holy life, and hours of silent
prayer for those in the peril of trial and the agony of
death.

Their conversations may still be read, and breathe a
piety as exquisite as it is natural and touching.  To
both these groups came daily the Abbé Loisel, bringing
to the one news of the outside world, and to the other
the consolations of religion.  Mass was said furtively,
the Host elevated, the faithful communicated, and
Loisel would pass out again to his life of hourly peril,
moving from hiding-place to hiding-place, and from
plot to plot, risking his safety by day to comfort the
prisoners, or to bless the condemned on their way to
the scaffold, and by night to give encouragement to
some little band of aristocrats who thought they could
fight the Revolution.

Singular mixture of conspirator and saint, his courage
was undoubted.  The recorded heroisms of the times
are many, those unrecorded more, and his strange
adventures have never found an historian.

Outside the Gironde rocked, tottered, and fell.
Imprisoned Hébert was loose again.  Danton struck for
the Mountain, and struck right home.  First arrest,
then prison, and lastly death came upon the men who
had dreamed of ruling France.  The strong man
armed had kept the house, until there came one stronger
than he.

So passed the Girondins, first of the Revolution's
children to fall beneath the Juggernaut car they had
reared and set in motion.





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.. _`AN UNWELCOME VISITOR`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium

   AN UNWELCOME VISITOR

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Mlle de Rochambeau shared a small,
unwholesome cell with three other women.  One
of them, Mme de Coigny, a young widow, had lately
given birth to a child, a poor, fretful little creature
whose wailings added to the general discomfort.

Mme Renard, the linen draper's wife, tossed her head,
and complained volubly to whoever would listen, that
she got no sleep at nights, since the brat came.  She
had been a great man's mistress, and was under arrest
because he had emigrated.  Terrified to death, she
bewailed her lot continually, was sometimes fawning,
sometimes insolent to her aristocratic companions, and
always very disdainful of the fourth inmate, a stout
Breton peasant, with a wooden manner which concealed
an enormous respect for the company in which she
found herself.  She told her rosary incessantly, when
not occupied with the baby, who was less ill at ease in
her accustomed arms than with its frail, young mother.

One night Mademoiselle awoke with a start.  She
thought she was being called, and listened intently.  A
little light came through the grated window—moonlight,
but sallow, and impure, as if the rays were infected
by the heaviness of the atmosphere.  It served,
however, to show the heavy immobility of Marie Kérac's
form as she lay, emitting unmistakable snores, the baby
caught in her left arm and sleeping too.  A dingy beam
fell right across Mme Renard's face.  It had been
pretty enough, in a round dimpled way, but now it
looked heavy and leaden, showing lines of fretful fear,
even in sleep.

Out of the darkness in the corner there came a long-drawn
sigh, and then a very low voice just breathed the
words, "Mademoiselle de Rochambeau, are you awake?"  Aline
sat up.

"Is it you, Madame de Coigny?" she asked, a little
startled, for both sigh and voice had a vague
unearthliness that seemed to make the night darker.
The Bretonne's honest breathing was a reassuring sound.

"Yes!" said the low voice.

"Are you ill—can I do anything for you?"

There was a rustling movement and a dim shape
emerged from the shadow.

"If I might lie down beside you for a while.  The
little one went so peacefully to sleep with that good
soul, that I had not the heart to take her back, and it
is lonely—mon Dieu, it is lonely!"

Aline made room on the straw pallet, and put an arm
round the cold, shrinking figure.

"Why, you are chilled," she said gently, "and the
night is quite warm."

"To-morrow I shall be colder," said Mme de Coigny
in a strange whisper.

"My dear, what do you mean?"

Something like a shiver made the straw rustle.

"I am not afraid.  It is only that I cannot get warm";
then turning her face to Aline she whispered, "they
will come for me to-morrow."

"No, no; why should you think so?  How can you know?"

"Ah, I know—I know quite well—and I am glad,
really.  I should have been glad to die before the little
one came, for then she would have been safe too.  Now
she has this business of life before her, and, see you, I
find life too sad, at all events for us women."

"Life is not always sad," said Aline soothingly.

"Mine has been sad," said Mme de Coigny.  "May
I talk to you a little?  We are of the same age, and
to-night—to-night I feel so strange, as if I were quite
alone in some great empty place."

"Yes, talk to me, and I will put my arms round you.
There!  Now you will be warmer."

Another shiver shook the bed, and then the low voice
began again.

"I wanted to be a nun, you know.  When I was a
child they called me the little nun, and always I said I
would be one.  Then when I was eighteen, my elder
sister died, and I was an heiress, and they married me
to M. de Coigny."

"Did you not want to marry him?"

"Nobody thought of asking me, and, mon Dieu, how
I cried, and wept, and tortured myself.  I thought I was
a martyr, no less, and prayed that I might die.  It was
terrible!  By the time the wedding-day came, M. de
Coigny must have wondered at his bride, for my face
was swollen with weeping, and my eyes red and sore,"
and she gave a little ghost of a laugh.

"Was he kind to you?"

"Yes, he was kind"—there was a queer inflection in
the low tone—"and almost at once he was called away
for six months, and I went back to my prayers, and
tried to fancy myself a nun again.  Then he came back,
and all at once, I don't know how, something seemed to
break in my heart, and I loved him.  Mon Dieu, how I
loved him!  And he loved me,—that was what was so
wonderful."

"Then you were happy?"

"For a month—one little month—only one little
month—" she broke off on a sob, and clung to Aline
in the dark.  "They arrested us, took us to prison,
and when I would have gone to the scaffold with him,
they tore me away, yes, though I went on my knees
and prayed to them.  'The Republic does not kill her
unborn citizens,' they said; and they sent me here to
wait."

"You will live for the poor little baby," whispered
Aline, her eyes full of tears, but Mme de Coigny
shook her head.

"No," she said quietly; "it is over now.  To-morrow
they will take me away."

She lay a little longer, but did not talk much, and
after a while she slipped away to her own mattress, and
Aline, listening, could hear that she slept.

In the morning she made no reference to what had
passed, but when Aline left the cell to go to Mme de
Matigny's room she thought as she passed out that she
heard a whispered "Adieu," though on looking round
she saw that Mme de Coigny's face was bent over the
child, whom she was rocking on her knee.

She went on her way, walking fast, and lifting her
skirts carefully, for the passages of the Abbaye were
places of indescribable noisomeness.  About half-way
down, the open door of an empty cell let a little light
in upon the filth and confusion, and showed the bestial,
empurpled face of a drunken turnkey, who lay all along
a bench, sleeping off the previous night's excesses.  As
Aline hastened, she saw a man come down the corridor,
holding feebly to the wall.  Opposite the empty cell he
paused, catching at the jamb with shaking fingers, and
lifting a face which Mademoiselle de Rochambeau
recognised with a little cry of shocked surprise.

"M. Cléry!" she exclaimed.

Edmond Cléry could hardly stand, but he forced a
pitiful parody of his old, gay laugh and bow.

"Myself," he said, "or at least as much of me as the
ague has left."

Just inside the cell was a rough stool, and Aline drew
it quickly forward.  He sank down gratefully, leaning
against the door-post, and closing his eyes for a moment.

"Oh," said Mademoiselle, "how ill you look; you are
not fit to walk alone."

He gave her a whimsical glance.

"So it appears," he murmured, "since De Maurepas,
you, and my own legs are all of the same story.  Well,
he will be after me in a few moments, that good
Maurepas, and then I shall get to my room again."

"I think I know M. de Maurepas a little," said
Aline; "he is very religious."

Cléry gave a faint laugh.

"Yes, we are strange room-mates, he and I.  He
prays all the time and I not at all, since I never could
imagine that le bon Dieu could possibly be interested
in my banal conversation; but he is a good comrade,
that Maurepas, in spite of his prayers."

"But, Monsieur, how come you to be so ill?  If you
knew how I have reproached myself, and now to see
you like this—oh, you cannot tell how I feel."

Cléry found the pity in her eyes very agreeable.

"And why reproach yourself, Citoyenne; it is not
your fault that my cell is damp."

"No, no, but your arrest; to think that I should have
brought that upon you.  Had I known, I would have
done anything rather than ask your help."

"Ah, then you would have deprived me of a pleasure.
Indeed, Citoyenne, my arrest need not trouble you; it
was due, not to your affairs, but my own."

"Ah, M. Cléry, is that true?" and her voice spoke her
relief.

"I should be able to think better of myself if it were
not," said Cléry a little bitterly.  "I was a fool, and I
am being punished for my folly.  Dangeau warned me
too.  When you see him again, Citoyenne, you may tell
him that he was right about Thérèse."

"Thérèse—Thérèse Marcel?" asked Aline, shrinking
a little.

"Ah—you know her!  Well, I trusted her, and she
betrayed me, and here I am.  Dangeau always said that
she was dangerous—the devil's imitation of a woman,
he called her once, and you can tell him that he was
quite right."

Aline averted her eyes, and her colour rose a shade.
For a moment her heart felt warm.  Then she looked
back at Cléry, and fell quickly upon her knees beside
him, for he was gasping for breath, and falling sideways
from the stool.  She managed to support him for the
moment, but her heart beat violently, and at the sound
of footsteps she called out.  To her relief, M. de
Maurepas came up quickly.  If he felt any surprise at
finding her in such a situation, he was too well-bred to
show it.

"Do not be alarmed," he said hastily.  "He has been
very ill, but this is only a swoon; he should not have
walked."  Then, "Mademoiselle, move your arm, and
let me put mine around him, so—now I can manage."

He lifted Cléry as he spoke, and carried him the
length of the corridor.

"Now, if Mademoiselle will have the goodness to
push the door a little wider," and he passed in and laid
Cléry gently down.

Mademoiselle hesitated by the door for a minute.

"He looks so ill, will he die?" she said.

"Not of this," returned M. de Maurepas; then, after
a moment's pause, and with a grave smile, "Nor at all
till it is God's will, Mademoiselle."

Mlle de Rochambeau spent the morning with Marguerite.
On her return to her own cell she found an
empty place.  Mme de Coigny was gone, and the
little infant wailed on the peasant woman's lap.

Cléry was better next day.  On the third Aline met
M. de Maurepas in the corridor.  He was accompanied
by a rough-looking turnkey, and she was about to pass
without speaking, but their eyes met, and on the impulse
she stopped and asked:

"How is M. Cléry to-day?"

The young soldier looked at her steadily.

"He has—he has moved on, Mademoiselle," he
returned, something of distress in his tone.

The turnkey burst into a loud, brutal laugh.

"Eh, that was the citizen with the ague?  At the last
he shook and shook so much that he shook his head
off—yes—right out of the little window, where his friend
is now going to look for it," and he clapped De Maurepas
on the shoulder with a dingy, jocular hand.

Aline drew a sharp breath.

"Oh, no," she said involuntarily, but De Maurepas
bent his head in grave assent.

"Is this so pleasant a camp that you grudge me my
marching orders?" he asked; and as they passed he
looked back a moment and said, "Adieu, Mademoiselle."

She gave him back the word very low, and he smiled
again, a smile that irradiated his rough features and
steady brown eyes.  "Indeed, I think I go to 'Him,'"
he said, and was gone.

Aline steadied herself against the wall, and closed her
eyes for a moment.  She had conceived a sincere liking
for the young soldier; Cléry had done her a service, and
now both were gone, and she still left.  And yet she
knew that Hébert was loose again.  When she had first
heard of his release she spent days of shuddering
apprehension, but as the time went on she began to entertain
a trembling hope that she was forgotten, as happened to
more than one prisoner in those days.

Hébert was loose again, but, for a time at least, with
hands too full of public matters, and brain too occupied
with the struggle for existence, to concern himself with
matters of private pleasure or revenge.

It was the middle of June before he thought seriously
of Mlle de Rochambeau.

"Dangeau is returning," said Danton one morning,
and Hébert's dormant spite woke again into full activity.

At the Abbaye, the hot afternoon waned; a drowsy
stillness fell upon its inmates.  Mme de Matigny dozed
a little.  She had grown older in the past few weeks,
but her glance was still piercing, and she woke at
intervals with a start, and let it rest sharply upon her little
circle, as if forbidding them to be aware of Juno nodding.

Marguerite and Aline sat together: Aline half asleep
with her head in her friend's lap, for Mme de Coigny's
baby had died at dawn, and she had been up all night
tending it, and now fatigue had its way with her.

Suddenly a turnkey stumbled in.  He had been drinking,
and stood blinking a moment as, coming from the
dark corridor, he met the level sunlight full.  Then he
called Mlle de Rochambeau's name, and as she awoke
with a sense of startled amazement Marguerite flung
soft arms about her.

"Ah, ma mie, ma belle, ma bien aimée!" she cried,
sobbing.

"Chut!" said the man, with a leer.  "She 'd rather
hear that from some one else, I take it, my little
Citoyenne.  If I 'm not mistaken there 's some one ready
enough.  There 's no need to cry this time, since it is
only to see a visitor that I want the Citoyenne.  There 's
a Citizen Deputy below with an order to see her, so less
noise, please, and march."

The blood ran back to Aline's cheek.  Only two days
back the Abbé had mentioned Dangeau's name, and had
said he was returning.  If it should be he?  The
thought flashed, and was checked even as it flashed, but
she followed the man with a step that was buoyant in
spite of her fatigue.  Then in the gaoler's room—Hébert!

Just a moment's pause, and she came forward with
a composure that hid God knows what of shrinking,
maidenly disgust.

Hébert was not attractive to look at.  His garments
were dusty and wine-stained, his creased, yellow linen
revealing a frowsy and unshaven chin, where the reddish
hair showed unpleasantly upon the fat, unwholesome
flesh.  He laughed, disclosing broken teeth.

"It was not I whom you expected, hein Citoyenne,"
he said, with diabolical intuition.  "He gets tired easily,
you see, our good Jacques Dangeau, and lips that have
been kissed too often don't tempt him any more."

His leer pointed the insult, and an intolerable burning
invaded every limb, but she steadied herself against
the wall, and leaned there, her head still up, facing him.

"Did you think I had forgotten you too?" he pursued,
smiling odiously.  "Ah!  I see you did me that injustice,
but you do not know me, ma belle.  Mine is such a
faithful heart.  It never forgets, never; and it always
gets what it wants in the end.  I have been in prison
too, as you may have heard—yes, you did?  And
grieved for me, pretty one, that I am sure of.  A few
rascals crossed my path and annoyed me for the moment.
Where are they now?  Trembling under arrest.  Had
they not detained me, I should have flown to you long
ago; but I trust that now you acquit me of the
discourtesy of keeping a lady waiting.  I am really the
soul of politeness."

There was a pause.  Mademoiselle held to the wall,
and kept her eyes away from his face.

"Your affair comes on to-morrow," he said, with a
brisk change of tone.

For the moment she really felt a sense of thankfulness.
So she was delivered from the unbearable affront
of this man's presence what did death matter?

Hébert guessed her thoughts.

"Rather death than me, hein?" he said, leaning
closer.  "Is that what you are thinking, Ma'mselle
White-face?"

Her eyes spoke for her.

"I can save you yet," he cried, angered by her
silence.  "A word from me and your patriotism is
above reproach.  Come, you 've made a good fight, and
I won't say that has n't made me like you all the better.
I always admire spirit; but now it's time the play was
over.  Down with the curtain, and let's kiss and make
friends behind it."

Mademoiselle stood silent, a helpless thing at bay.

"You won't, eh?" and his tone changed suddenly.
"Very well, my pretty piece of innocence; it's Fouquier
Tinville to-morrow, and then the guillotine,—but"—his
voice sank savagely—"my turn first."

She quivered in a sick horror.  "What did he mean;
what could he do?  Oh, Mary Virgin!"

His face came very close with its pale, hideous smile.

"Come to me willingly, and I 'll save your life and
set you free when I 've had enough of you.  Remain
the obstinate pig you are, and you shall come all the
same, but the guillotine shall have you next day."

Her white lips moved.

"You cannot—" she breathed almost inaudibly.
Her senses were clouding and reeling, but she clutched
desperately at that one thought.  Some things were
impossible.  This was one of them.  Death—yes, and
oh, quickly, quickly; no more of this torture.  But this
new, monstrous threat—no, no, dear God! no, such a
thing could not, could not happen!

The room was all mist, swirling, rolling mist out of
which looked Hébert's eyes.  Through it sounded his
voice, his laugh.

"Cannot, cannot—fine words, my pretty, fine words.
When one has friends, good friends, one can do a good
deal more than you think, and instead of finding yourself
in the Conciergerie between sentence and execution, I
can arrange quite nicely that you should be in these
loving arms of mine.  Aha, my dear!  What do you
say now?  Will you hear reason, or no?"

The mist covered everything now, and the wall she
leaned against seemed to rock and give.  She spread
out her hands, and with a gasp fell waveringly, first to her
knees, and then sideways upon the stones in a dead faint.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DISTRESSING NEWS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium

   DISTRESSING NEWS

.. vspace:: 2

Dangeau entered Paris next morning.  His
mission had dragged itself out to an interminable
length.  Even now he returned alone, his colleague,
Bonnet, having been ordered to remain at Lyons for
the present, whilst Dangeau made report at headquarters.
The cities of the South smouldered ominously, and were
ready at a breath to break into roaring flame.  Even
as Dangeau rode the first tongues of fire ran up, and
a general conflagration threatened.  Of this he rode to
give earnest warning, and his face was troubled and
anxious, though the outdoor life had given it a brown
vigour which had been lacking before.

He put up his horse at an inn and walked to his old
quarters with a warm glow rising in his breast; a glow
before which all misgivings and preoccupations grew
faint.

He had not been able to forget the pale, proud
aristocrat, who had claimed his love so much against his
will and hers; but in his days of absence he had set her
image as far apart as might be, involving himself in
the press of public business, to the exclusion of his
thoughts of her.  But now—now that he was about
to see her again, the curtain at the back of his mind
lifted, and showed her standing—an image in a
shrine—unapproachably radiant, unforgettably enchanting,
unalterably dear, and all the love in him fell on its
knees and adored with hidden face.

He passed up the Rue des Lanternes and beheld its
familiar features transfigured.  Here she had walked
all the months of his absence, and here perhaps she had
thought of him; there in the little room had mingled
his name with her sweet prayers.  He remembered
hotly the night he had asked her if she prayed for him,
and her low, exquisitely tremulous, "Yes, Citizen."

He drew a long, deep breath and entered the small shop.

It was dark coming in from the glare, but he made
out Rosalie in her accustomed seat, only it seemed to
him that she was huddled forward in an unusual manner.

"Why, Citoyenne!" he cried cheerfully, "I am back,
you see."

Rosalie raised her head and stared at him, and she
seemed to be coming back with difficulty from a great
distance.  As his eyes grew used to the change from
the outer day he looked curiously at her face.  There
was something strange, it seemed to him, about the
sunken eyes; they had lost the old shrewd look, and
were dull and wavering.  For a moment it occurred to
him that she had been drinking; then the heavy glance
changed, brightening into recognition.

"You, Citizen?" she said, with a sort of dull surprise.

"Myself, and very glad to be back."

"You are well, Citizen?"

"And you, I fear, suffering?"

Rosalie pulled herself together.

"No, no," she protested, "I am well too, quite well.
It is only that the days are dull when there is no
spectacle, and I sit there and think, and count the heads,
and wonder if it hurt them much; and then it makes
my own head ache, and I become stupid."

Dangeau shuddered lightly.  A gruesome welcome this.

"I would not go and see such things," he said.

"Sometimes I wish—" began Rosalie, and then
paused; a red patch came on either sallow cheek.  "It
is too ennuyant when there is nothing to excite one,
voyez-vous?  Yesterday there were five, and one of
them struggled.  Ah, that gave me a palpitation!  They
say it was n't an aristocrat.  *They* all die alike, with a
little stretched smile and steady eyes—no crying
out—I find that tiresome at the last."

"Why, Rosalie," said Dangeau, "you should stay
at home as you used to.  Since when have you become
a gadabout?  You will finish by having bad dreams
and losing your appetite."

Rosalie looked up with a sort of horrid animation.

"Ah, j'y suis déjà," she said quickly.  "Already I
see them in the night.  A week ago I wake, cold,
wet—and there stands the Citizen Cléry with his head
under his arm like any St. Denis.  Could I eat next
day?—Ma foi, no!  And why should he come to me,
that Cléry?  Was it I who had a hand in his death?
These revenants have not common-sense.  It is my
cousin Thérèse whose nights should be disturbed, not
mine."

Dangeau looked at her steadily.

"Come, come, Rosalie," he said, "enough of
this—Edmond Cléry's head is safe enough."

"Yes, yes," nodded Rosalie, "safe enough in the
great trench.  Safe enough till Judgment day, and then
it is Thérèse who must answer, and not I.  It was none
of my doing."

"But, Rosalie—mon Dieu! what are you saying—Edmond——?"

"Why, did you not know?"

"Woman!—what?"

"Ask Thérèse," said Rosalie with a sullen look, and
fell to plaiting the border of her coarse apron.

"Rosalie!"

His voice startled her, and her mood shifted.

"Yes, to be sure, he was a friend of yours, and it is
bad news.  Ah, he 's dead, there 's no doubt of that.
I saw it with my own eyes.  He had been ill, and
could hardly mount the steps; but in the end he
smiled and waved his hand, and went off as bravely
as the best of them.  It is a pity, but he offended
Thérèse, and she is a devil.  I told her so; I said to
her, 'Thérèse, I think you are a devil,' and she only
laughed."

Dangeau could see that laugh,—red, red lips, and
white, even teeth, and all the while lips that had kissed
hers livid, dabbled with blood.  Oh, horrible!  Poor
Cléry, poor Edmond!

He gave a great shudder and forced his thoughts
away from the vision they had evoked, but he sought
voice twice before he could say:

"All else are well?"

She looked sullen again, and shrugged her shoulders.

"Ma foi, Citizen, Paris does not stand still."

He bit his lip.

"But here, in this house?"

"I am well, I have said so before."

He turned as if to go.

"And the Citoyenne Roche?"  He had his voice in
hand now, and the question had a careless ring.

"Gone," said Rosalie curtly.

In a flash that veil of carelessness had dropped.  His
hand fell heavily upon her shoulder.

"Gone—where?" he asked tensely.

"Where every one goes these days, these fine days.
To prison, to the guillotine.  They all go there."

For a moment Dangeau's heart stood still, then
laboured so that his voice was beyond control.  It came
in husky gasps.  "Dead—she is dead.  Oh, mon Dieu,
mon Dieu!"

Rosalie was rocking to and fro, counting on her
fingers.  His emotion seemed to please her, for she
gave a foolish smile.

"She has a little white neck, very smooth and soft,"
she muttered.

A terrible sound broke from Dangeau's ghastly lips;
a sound that steadied for a moment the woman's
tottering mind.  She looked up curiously, as if recalling
something, smoothed the hair from her forehead, and
touched the rigid hand which lay upon her shoulder.

"Tiens, Citizen," she said in a different tone, "she is
not dead yet"; and the immense relief gave Dangeau's
anger rein.

"Woman!" he said violently, "what has happened?
Where is she?  At once——"

Rosalie twitched away her shoulder, shrinking back
against the wall.  This blaze of anger kept her sane for
the moment.

"She is in prison, at the Abbaye," she said.  Under
the excitement her brain cleared, and she was thinking
now, debating how much she should tell him.

"Since when?"

"A month—six weeks—what do I know?"

"How came she to be arrested?"

"How should I know, Citizen?"

"Did you betray her?  You knew who she was.
Take care and do not lie to me."

"I lie, I—Citizen!  But I was her best friend, and
when that beast Hébert came hanging round——"

"Hébert?"

"She took his fancy, Heaven knows why, and you
know her proud ways.  Any other girl would have
played with him a little, given a smile or two, and kept
him off; but she, with her nose in the air, and her eyes
looking past him, as if he was n't fit for her to see,—why,
she made him feel as if he were the mud under her feet,
and what could any one expect?  He got her clapped
into the Abbaye, to repent at leisure."

Dangeau was a man of clean lips, but now he called
down damnation upon Hébert's black soul with an
earnestness that frightened Rosalie.

"What more do you know?  Tell me at once!"

She turned uneasily from the look in his eyes.

"She will be tried to-day."

"You are sure?"

"Thérèse told me, and she and Hébert are thick as
thieves again."

"What hour?  Dieu!  what hour?  It is ten o'clock now."

"Before noon, I think she said, but I can't be sure
of that."

"You are lying?"

"No, no, Citizen—I do not know—indeed I do not."

He saw that she was speaking the truth, and turned
from her with a despairing gesture.  As he stumbled
out of the shop he knocked over a great basket of
potatoes, and Rosalie, with a sort of groan of relief, went
down on her knees and began to gather them up.  As
the excitement of the scene she had been through
subsided her eyes took that dull glaze again.  Her
movements became slower, and she stared oddly at the brown
potatoes as she handled them.

"One—two—three," she counted in a monotonous
voice, dropping them into the basket.  At each little
thud she started slightly, then went on counting.

"Four—five—six—seven—eight—" Suddenly she
stared at them heavily.  "There's no blood," she
muttered, "no blood."

Half an hour later Thérèse found her with a phlegmatic
smile upon her face and idle hands folded over
something that lay beneath her coarse apron.

"Come along then, Rosalie," she called out
impatiently.  "Have you forgotten the trial?—we've
not too much time."

"Ah!" said Rosalie, nodding slowly; "ah, the trial."

Thérèse tapped impatiently with her foot.

"Come then, for Heaven's sake! or we shall not get
places."

"Places," said Rosalie suddenly; "what for?"

"Ma foi, if you are not stupid to-day.  The trial, I
tell you, that Rochambeau girl's trial—white-faced little
fool.  Ciel! if I could not play my cards better than
that," and she laughed.

Rosalie's hands were hidden by her apron.  One of
them clutched something.  The fingers lifted one by one,
and in her mind she counted, "One—two—three—four—five"—and
then back again—"One—two—three—four—five—"  Thérèse
was staring at her.

"What's the matter with you to-day?" she said.
"Are you coming or no?  It will be amusing, Hébert
says; but if you prefer to sit here and sulk, do so by all
means.  For me, I go."

She turned to do so, but Rosalie was already getting
out of her chair.

"Wait then, Thérèse," she grumbled.  "Is no one
to have any amusement but you?  There, give me your
arm, come close.  Now tell me what's going to happen?"

"Oh, just the trial, but I thought you wanted to see
it.  For me, I always think it makes the execution more
interesting if one has seen the trial also."

"Dangeau is back," said Rosalie irrelevantly.

Thérèse laughed loud.

"He has a fine welcome home," she said.  "Well,
are you coming, for I 've no mind to wait?"

"It is only the trial," said Rosalie vaguely.  "Just a
trial—and what is that?  I do not care for a trial,
there is no blood."

She laughed a little and rocked, cuddling what lay
beneath her apron.

"Just a trial," she muttered; "but whose trial did
you say?"

Thérèse lost patience.  She stamped on the floor.

"What, again?  What the devil is the matter with
you to-day?  Are you drunk?"

Rosalie turned her big head and looked at her cousin.
They were standing close together, and her left hand,
with its strong, stumpy fingers, closed like a vice upon
the girl's arm.

"No, I 'm not drunk, not drunk, Thérèse," she said
in a thick voice.

Thérèse tried to shake her off.

"Well, you sound like it, and behave like it, you old
fool," she said furiously.  "Drunk or crazy, it's all
one.  Let go of me, I shall be late."

"Yes," said Rosalie, nodding her head—"yes, you
will be late, Thérèse."

"Va, imbécile!" cried the girl in a passion.

As she spoke she hit the nodding face sharply,
twitching violently to one side in the effort to free her
arm.

The ponderous hand closed tighter, and Thérèse,
turning again with a curse, saw that upon Rosalie's
heavily flushed face that stopped the words half-way,
and changed them to a shriek.

"Oh, Mary Virgin!" she screamed, and saw the
hidden right hand come swinging into sight, holding a
long, sharp knife such as butchers use at their work.
Her eyes were all black, dilated pupil, and she choked
on the breath she tried to draw in order to scream again.
Oh, the hand! the knife!

It flashed and fell, wrenched free and fell again, and
Thérèse went down, horribly mute, her hands grasping
in the air, and catching at the basket across which she
fell.

She would scream no more now.  The knife clattered
to the floor from Rosalie's suddenly opened hand, and,
as if the sound were a signal, Thérèse gave one convulsive
shudder, which passed with a gush of crimson.

Rosalie went down on her knees, and gathered a handful
of the brown tubers from the piled basket.  She had
to push the corpse aside to get at them, and she did it
without a glance.

Then she threw the potatoes back into the basket
one by one.  She wore a complacent smile.  Her eyes
were intent.

"Now, there is blood," she said, nodding as if
satisfied.  "Now, there is blood."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A TRIAL AND A WEDDING`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium

   A TRIAL AND A WEDDING

.. vspace:: 2

Of the hours that passed after that death-like swoon
of hers Mlle de Rochambeau never spoke.
Never again could she open the door behind which
lurked madness, and an agony such as women have had
to bear, time and again, but of which no woman whom
it has threatened can speak.  Hébert had given his
orders, and she was thrust into an empty cell, where she
lay cowering, with hidden face, and lips that trembled
too much to pray.

Hébert's threat lay in her mind like a poison in the
body.  Soon it would kill—but not in time, not soon
enough.  She could not think, or reason, and hope was
dead.  Something else had come in its place, a thing
unformulated and dreadful, not to be thought of,
unbelievable, and yet unbearably, irrevocably present.

Oh, the long, shuddering hours, and yet, by a twist
of the tortured brain, how short—how brief—for now
she saw them as barriers between her and hell, and each
as it fell away left her a thing more utterly unhelped.

When they brought her out in the morning, and she
stepped from the dark prison into the warm, sunny
daylight, she raised her head and looked about her a little
wonderingly.

Still a sun in the sky!  Still summer shine and
breath, and beautiful calm space of blue ethereal light
above.  A sort of stunned bewilderment fell upon her,
and she sat very still and quiet all the way.

Inside the hall citizens crowded and jostled one
another for a place; plump, respectable mothers of
families, cheek by jowl with draggled wrecks of the
slums, moneyed shopkeepers, tattered loafers, a
wild-eyed Jacobin or two, and everywhere women, women,
women.  Women with their children, lifting a round-eyed
starer high to see the white-faced aristocrat go
past; women with their work, whose chattering tongues
kept pace with the clattering needles; women fiercer and
more cruel than men, to whom death and blood and
anguish were become a stimulant more fatally potent than
any alcohol.

There were men there too, gaping, yawning, telling
horrible tales, men whose hands had dripped innocent
blood in September.  There was a reek of garlic, the
air was abominably hot and close, and wherever citizens
could get an elbow free one saw a mopping of greasy
faces going forward.

As Mademoiselle de Rochambeau was brought in, a
sort of growling murmur went round.  The crowd was
in a dangerous mood: on the verge of ennui, it wanted
something fresh—a sauce piquante to its daily dish—and
here was only another cursed aristocrat with nothing
very remarkable about her.

She looked round, not curiously, but in some vague,
helpless fashion, which might have struck pity from
hearts less inured to suffering.  On the raised stage to
which they had brought her there were a couple of
rough tables.  At the nearest of the two sat a number
of men, very dirty and evil-eyed—Fouquier Tinville's
carefully packed jury; and at the farther one, Herman,
the great tow-haired Judge President, with his heavy air
of being half asleep; and Tinville himself, the Public
Prosecutor, low-browed, with retreating chin—Renard
the Fox, as a contemporary squib has it, the perpetrator
of which lost his head for his pains.  Behind him lounged
Hébert, hands in pockets, light eyes roving here and
there.  She saw him and turned her head away with the
wince of a trapped animal, looking through a haze of
misery to the sea of faces below.

There is a peculiar effluence from any large body of
people.  Their encouragement, or their hostility,
radiates from them, and has an overwhelming influence
upon the mind.  When the crowd cheers how quickly
enthusiasm spreads, until, like a rising tide, it covers
its myriad human grains of sand!  And a multitude in
anger?—No one who has heard it can forget!

Imagine, then, one bruised, tormented human speck,
girl in years, gently nurtured, set high in face of a
packed assemblage, every upturned face in which looked
at her with appraising lust, bloodthirsty cruelty, or
inhuman curiosity.  A wild panic unknown before swept
in upon her soul.  She had not thought it could feel
again, but between Hébert's glance, which struck her
like a shameful blow, and all these eyes staring with
hatred, her reason rocked, and she felt a scream rise
shuddering from the very centre of her being.

Those watching saw both slender hands catch suddenly
at the white throat, whilst for a minute the darkened
eyes stared wildly round; then, with a supreme effort, she
drew herself up, and stood quietly, and if the blood beat
a mad tune on heart and brain, there was no outward
sign, except a pallor more complete, and a tightening
of the clasped, fallen hands that left the knuckles
white.

It was thus, after months of absence, that Dangeau
saw her again, and the rage and love and pity in his
heart boiled up until it challenged his utmost
self-control to keep his hands from Hébert's throat.

Hébert smiled, but uneasily.  This was what he had
planned—wished for—and yet—  Face to face with
Dangeau again, he felt the old desire to slink past, and
get out of the range of the white, hot anger in the eyes
that for a moment seemed to scorch his face.

Dangeau had come in quietly enough, and stood first
at the edge of the crowd, by the steps which led to the
raised platform on which accused and judges were placed.
He had shot his bolt, had made a vain effort to see
Danton, and was now come here to do he knew not what.

Mademoiselle looking straight before her, with eyes
that now saw nothing, was not aware of his presence, as
in a strained, far-away voice she answered the questions
Fouquier Tinville put to her.

"Your name?"

"Aline Marie de Rochambeau."

"You are a cousin of the late ci-devant and
conspirator Montargis?"

"Yes."

A sort of howl went up from the back of the room,
where a knot of filthy men stood gesticulating.

"And you were betrothed to that other traitor
Sélincourt?"

"Yes."

The answers dropped almost indifferently from the
scarcely parted lips, but she shrank and swayed a little,
as a second shout followed her reply, and she caught
curses, cries for her death, and a woman's scream of,
"Down with Sélincourt's mistress!  Give her to us!
Throw her down!"

Tinville waved for silence and gradually the noise
lessened, the audience settling down with the reflection
that perhaps it would be a pity to cut the play short in
its first act.

"You have conspired against the Republic?"

"No."

"But I say yes," said Tinville loudly.  "Citizen
Hébert discovered you under an assumed name.  Why
did you take a name that was not your own if you had
no intention of plotting?  Are honest citizens ashamed
of their names?"

Dangeau swung himself on to the platform and came
forward.

"Citizen President," he said quietly.  "I claim to
represent the accused, who has, I see, no counsel."

Herman looked up stupidly, a vague smile on his
broad, blond face.

"We have done away with counsel for the defence,"
he observed, with a large, explanatory wave of the hand.
"It took too much time.  The Revolutionary Tribunal
now has increased powers, and requires only to hear and
to be convinced of the prisoners' crimes.  We have
simplified the forms since you went south, Citizen."

Fouquier Tinville glanced at him with venomous
intention.  "And the Citizen delays us," he said
politely.

Aline had let one only sign of feeling escape her,—a
soft, quick gasp as Dangeau came within the contracting
circle of her consciousness,—but the sound reached him
and came sweetly to his ears.

He turned again to Herman.

"But you still hear witnesses, or whence the
conviction?" he said in a carefully controlled voice.

"It is Dangeau, our Dangeau!" shouted a woman near
the front.  "Let him speak if he wants to: what does
he know of the girl?"

He recognised little Louison, hanging to her big
husband's arm, and sent her a smiling nod of thanks.

"Witnesses, by all means," shrugged Tinville, to
whom Hébert had been whispering.  "Only be quick,
Citizen, and remember it is a serious thing to try to
justify a conspirator."  He turned and whispered back,
"He 'll talk his head off if we give him the chance—devil
speed him!" then leaned across the table and
inquired:

"What do you know of the accused?"

"I know her motive for changing her name."

"Oh, you know her motive—eh?"

Dangeau raised his voice.

"A patriotic one.  She came to Paris, she witnessed
the corruption and vice of aristocrats, and she determined
to come out from among them and throw in her lot
with the people."

Mademoiselle turned slowly and faced him.  Now if
she spoke, if she demurred, if she even looked a
contradiction of his words, they were both lost—both.

His eyes implored, commanded her, but her lips were
already opening, and he could see denial shaping there,
denial which would be a warrant of death, when of a
sudden she met Hébert's dull, anxious gaze, and,
shuddering, closed her lips, and looked down again at the
uneven, dusty floor.  Dangeau let out his breath with
a gasp of relief, and spoke once more.

"She called herself Marie Roche because her former
name was hateful to her.  She worked hard, and went
hungry.  I call on Louison Michel to corroborate my
words."

Hébert raised a careless hand, and instantly there was
a clamour of voices from the back.  He congratulated
himself in having had the forethought to install a claque,
as they listened to the cries of, "Death to the aristocrat!
Down with the conspirator!  Death!  Death!"

Dangeau turned from the bar to the people.

"Citizens," he cried, "I turn to you for justice.
What did they say in the bad old days?—'The King's
voice is God's voice,' and I say it still."  The clamour
rose again, but his voice dominated it.

"I say it still, for, though the King is dead, a new
king lives whose reign will never end,—the Sovereign
People,—and at their bar I know there will be equal
justice shown, and no consideration of persons.  Why
did Capet fall?  Why did I vote for his death?  Because
of oppression and injustice.  Because there was no
protection for the weak—no hearing for the poor.  But
shall not the People do justice?  Citizens, I appeal to
you—I am confident in your integrity."

A confused uproar followed, some shouting, "Hear
him!" and others still at their old parrot-cry of, "Death!
Death!"

Above it all rang Louison's shrill cry:

"A speech, a speech!  Let Dangeau speak!" and by
degrees it was taken up by others.

"The girl is innocent.  Will you, just Citizens,
punish her for a name which she has discarded, for
parents who are dead, and relations from whom she
shrank in horror?  I vouch for her, I tell you—I,
Jacques Dangeau.  Does any one accuse me?  Does
any one cast a slur upon my patriotism?  I tell you I
would cut off my right hand if it offended those
principles which I hold dearer than my life; and saying
that, I say again, I vouch for her."

"All very fine that," called a man's voice, "but
what right have you to speak for her, Citizen?  Has n't
the girl a tongue of her own?"

"Yes, yes!" shouted a big brewer who had swung
himself to the edge of the platform, and sat there
kicking his heels noisily.  "Yes, yes!  it 's all very well to
say 'I vouch for her,' but there 's only one woman any
man can vouch for, and that's his wife."

"What, Robinot, can you vouch for yours?" screamed
Louison; and a roar of laughter went up, spiced by the
brewer's very evident discomfort.

"Yes, what's she to you after all?" said another woman.

"A hussy!" shrieked a third.

"An aristocrat!"

"What do you know of her, and how do you know it?"

"Explain, explain!"

"Death, death to the aristocrat!"

Dangeau sent his voice ringing through the hall:

"She is my betrothed!"

A momentary hush fell upon the assembly.  Hébert
sprang forward with a curse, but Tinville plucked him
back, whispering, "Let him go on; that 'll damn him,
and is n't that what you want?"

Again Aline's lips moved, but instead of speaking
she put both hands to her heart, and stood pressing
them there silently.  In the strength of that silence
Dangeau turned upon the murmuring crowd.

"She is my betrothed, and I answer for her.  You all
know me.  She is an aristocrat no longer, but the
Daughter of the Revolution, for it has borne her into a
new life.  All the years before she has discarded.  From
its mighty heart she has drawn the principles of freedom,
and at its guiding hand learned her first trembling steps
towards Liberty.  In trial of poverty, loneliness, and
hunger she has proved her loyalty to the other children
of our great Mother.  Sons and Daughters of the
Republic, protect this child who claims to be of your
line, who holds out her hands to you and cries: 'Am
I not one of you?  Will you not acknowledge
me? brothers before whom I have walked blamelessly,
sisters amongst whom I have lived in poverty and
humility.'"

He caught Mademoiselle's hand, and held it up.

"See the fingers pricked and worn, as many of yours
are pricked and worn.  See the thin face—thin as your
daughters' faces are thin when there is not food for all,
and the elder must go without that the younger may
have more.  Look at her.  Look well, and remember
she comes to you for justice.  Citizens, will you kill
your converts?  She gives her life and all its hopes to
the Republic, and will the Republic destroy the gift?
Keep the knife to cut away the alien and the enemy.
Is my betrothed an alien?  Shall my wife be an enemy?
I swear to you that, if I believed it, my own hand would
strike her down!  If there is a citizen here who does
not believe that I would shed the last drop of my
heart's blood before I would connive at the danger of
the Republic, let him come forward and accuse me!"

"Stop him!" gasped Hébert.

Fouquier Tinville shrugged his shoulders, as he and
Herman exchanged glances.

"No, thanks, Hébert," he said coolly.  "He's got
them now, and I 've no fancy for a snug position
between the upper and the nether millstone.  After all,
what does it matter?  There are a hundred other
girls" and he spat on the dirty floor.

Undoubtedly Dangeau had them, for in that pause
no one spoke, and his voice rang out again at its full
strength:

"Come forward then.  Do any accuse me?"

There was a prolonged hush.  The jury growled
amongst themselves, but no one coveted the part of
spokesman.

Once Hébert started forward, cleared his throat, then
reflected for a moment on Danton and his ways—reflected,
too, that this transaction would hardly bear the
light of day, cursed the universe at large, and fell back
into his chair choking with rage.

It appeared that no one accused Dangeau.  Far in
the crowd a pretty gipsy of a girl laughed loudly.

"Handsome Dangeau for me!" she cried.  "Vive
Dangeau!"

In a minute the whole hall took it up, and the roof
rang with the shouting.  The girl who had laughed had
been lifted to her lover's shoulders, and stood there,
flushed and exuberant, leading the cheers with her wild,
shrill voice.

When the noise fell a little, she waved her arms,
crying, with a peal of laughter:

"Let's have a wedding, a wedding, mes amis!  If
she 's the Daughter of the Revolution, let the
Revolution give away the bride, and we 'll all say Amen!"

The crowd's changed mood tossed the new suggestion
into instant popularity.  The girl's cry was taken up on
all sides, there was bustling to and fro, laughter, gossip,
whispering, shouting, and general jubilation.  A fête, a
spectacle—something new—oh, but quite new.  A trial
that ended in the bridal of the victim, to be sure one
did not see that every day.  That was romantic.  That
made one's heart beat.  Well, well, she was in luck to get
a handsome lover instead of having her head sliced off.

"Vive Dangeau!  Vive Dangeau and the Daughter
of the Revolution!"

Up on to the platform swarmed the crowd, laughing,
gesticulating, pressing upon the jury, and even jostling
Fouquier Tinville himself.

Hébert bent to his ear in a last effort, but got only a
curse and a shrug for his pains.

"I tell you, he 's got them, and no human power can
thwart them now."

"You should have shut his mouth!  Why in the
devil's name did you let him speak?"

"You wanted him to compromise himself, and it
seemed the easiest way.  He has the devil's own luck.
Hark to the fools with their 'Vive Dangeau!'  A while
ago it was 'Death to the aristocrat!' and now it 's
'Dangeau and the Daughter of the Revolution!'"

"Speak to them,—do something," insisted Hébert.

"Try it yourself, and get torn to pieces," retorted
the other.  "The girl 's not my fancy.  Burn your own
fingers if you want to."

Dangeau was at the table now.

"We await the decision of the Tribunal," he said,
with a hint of sarcasm in the quiet tones.

Fouquier Tinville's eyes rested insolently upon him.

"Our Sovereign has decided, it seems," he said.
"For me—I throw up the prosecution."

Hébert flung away with an oath, and Herman bent
stolidly and wrote against the interrogatory the one
word, "Acquitted."

It stood out black and bold in his gross scrawl, and as
he threw the sand on it, Dangeau turned away with a
bow.

Some one was being pushed through the crowd—a
dark man in civil dress, but with the priest's look on
his sallow, nervous face.  Dangeau recognised the odd,
cleft chin and restless eyes of Latour, the Constitutional
curé of St. Jean.

"A wedding, a wedding!" shouted the whole assembly,
those at the back crying the more loudly, as if to make
up by their own noise for not being able to hear what
was passing on the platform.

"A wedding, a wedding!" shrieked the same women
who, not half an hour ago, had raised the howl for the
aristocrat's blood.

"Bride, bridegroom, and priest," laughed the gipsy-eyed
girl.  "What more do we want?  The Citizen
President can give away the bride, and I 'll be brides-maid.
Set me down then, Réné, and let 's to work."

Her lover pushed a way to the front and lifted her
on to the stage.  She ran to Mademoiselle and began to
touch her hair and settle the kerchief at her throat,
whilst Aline stood quite, quite still, and let her do what
she would.

She had not stirred since Dangeau had released her
hand, and within her every feeling and emotion lay
swooning.  It was as if a black tide had risen, covering
all within.  Upon its dark mirror floated the reflection
of Hébert's cruel eyes, and loose lips that smiled upon a
girl's shamed agony.  If those waters rose any higher
they would flood her brain and send her mad with horror,
Dangeau's voice seemed to arrest the tide, and whilst
he spoke the reflection wavered and grew faint.  She
listened, knowing what he said, as one knows the contents
of a book read long ago; but it was the voice itself,
not the words carried on it, that reached her reeling
brain and steadied it.

All at once a hand on her hair, at her breast; a girl's
eyes shining with excitement, whilst a shrill voice
whispered, "Saints! how pale you are!  What! not a blush
for the bridegroom?"  Then loud laughter all around,
and she felt herself pushed forward into an open space.

A ring had been formed around one of the tables;
men and women jostled at its outskirts, pushed one
another aside, and stood on tiptoe, peeping and applauding.
In the centre, Dangeau with his tricolour sash;
Mademoiselle, upon whose head some one had thrust
the scarlet cap of Liberty; and the priest, whose eyes
looked back and forth like those of a nervous horse.
He cleared his throat, moistened his dry lips, and began
the Office.  After a second's pause, Dangeau took the
bride's hand and did his part.  Cold as no living thing
should be, it lay in his, unresisting and unresponsive,
whilst his was like his mood—hotly masterful.  After
one glance he dared not trust himself to look at her.
Her white features showed no trace of emotion, her eyes
looked straight before her in a calm stare, her voice
made due response without tremor or hesitation.  "Ego
conjugo vos," rang the tremendous words, and they rose
from their knees before that strange assembly, man
and wife in the sight of God and the Republic.

"Kiss her then, Citizen," laughed the bridesmaid,
slipping her arm through Dangeau's, and he touched
the marble forehead with his lips.  The first kiss of his
strong love, and given and taken so.  Fire and ice met,
thrust into contact of all contacts the most intimate.
How strange, how unbearable!  Fraught with what
presage of disaster.

"Now you may kiss me," said the bridesmaid, pouting.
"Réné isn't looking; but be quick, Citizen, for
he 's jealous, and a broken head would n't be a pleasant
marriage gift."

Like a man in a dream he brushed the glowing cheek,
and felt its warmth.

Yes, so the living felt; but his bride was cold, as the
week-old dead are cold.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BARRIER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium

   THE BARRIER

.. vspace:: 2

After the wedding, what a home-coming!  Dangeau
had led his pale bride through the cheering,
applauding crowd, which followed them to their very
door, and on the threshold horror met them—for the floor
was dabbled with blood.  Thérèse's corpse lay yet in the
house, and a voluble neighbour told how Rosalie had
murdered her cousin, and had been taken, raving, to the
cells of the Salpêtrière.  The crowd was all agog for
details, and, taking advantage of the diversion, Dangeau
cleared a path for himself and Aline.  He took her to
her old room and closed the door.  The silence fell
strangely.

"My dearest, you are safe.  Thank God you are safe,"
he said in broken tones.

She looked straight before her with an expression
deeper than that which is usually called unconscious, her
eyes wide and piteous, like those of a child too badly
frightened to cry out.  He took her cold hands and held
them to his breast, chafing them gently, trying to revive
their warmth, and she let him do it, still with that
far-away, unreal look.

"My dear, I must go," he said after a moment.  "For
both our sakes I must see Danton at once, before any
garbled tale reaches his ear.  I will see that there is
some one in the house.  Louison Michel would come I
think.  There is my report to make, letters of the first
importance to be delivered; a good deal of work before
me, in fact.  But you will not be afraid now?  You are
safer than any woman in Paris to-day.  You will not be
nervous?"

She shook her head slightly, and drew one hand away
in order to push the hair from her forehead.  The gesture
was a very weary one, and Dangeau would have given
the world to catch her in his arms.

"So tired, my heart," he said in a low voice; and as a
little quiver took her, he continued quickly: "I will find
Louison; she came here with us, and is sure not to be far
away.  She will look after you, and bring you food, and
then you should sleep.  I dare not stay."

He kissed the hand which still lay passively in his and
went out hurriedly, not trusting himself to turn and look
at her again lest he should lose his careful self-control
and startle her by some wild outpouring of love, triumph,
and thankfulness.

Aline heard his footsteps die away, listening with
strained attention until the last sound melted into a
tense silence.  Then she looked wildly round, her breast
heaved distressfully, and tottering to the bed she fell on
it face downwards, and lay there in a stunned fatigue of
mind and body that left no place for thought or tears.
Presently came Louison, all voluble eagerness to talk of
the wedding and the murder, especially the latter.

"And to think that it was Jean's knife!  Holy Virgin,
if I had known what she came for!  There she sat, and
stared, and stared, until I told her she had best be going,
since I, at least, had no time to waste.  Yesterday, that
was; and this morning when Jean seeks his knife it is
gone,—and the noise, and the fuss.  'My friend,' I said,
'do I eat knives?' and with that I turned him out, and
all the while Rosalie had it.  Ugh! that makes one
shudder.  Not that that baggage Thérèse was any loss,
but it might as well have been you, or me.  When one
is mad they do not distinguish.  For me, I have said for
a long time that Rosalie's mind was going, and now it is
seen who is right.  Well, well, now Charlotte will come
round.  Mark my words, Charlotte will be here bright
and early to-morrow, if not to-night.  It will be the first
time she has set foot here in ten years.  She hated Rosalie
like poison,—a stepmother, only a dozen years older than
herself, and when the old man died she cleared out, and
has never spoken to Rosalie since the funeral.  But she 'll
be round now, mark my words."

Aline lay quite still.  She was just conscious that
Louison was there, talking a great deal, and that
presently she brought her some hot soup, which it was
strangely comfortable to swallow.  The little woman was
not ungentle with her, and did not leave her until the
half-swoon of fatigue had passed into deep sleep.  She
herself was to sleep in the house.  Dangeau had asked
her to, saying he might be late, and she had promised,
pleased to be on the spot where such exciting events had
taken place, and convinced that it would be for the health
of her husband's soul to have the charge of the children
for once.

It was very late before Dangeau came home.  If the
French language holds no such word, his heart supplied
it, for the first time in all the long years during which
there had been no one to miss him going, or look for him
returning.  Now the little room under the roof held the
long-loved, the despaired-of, the unattainably-distant,—and
she was his, his wife, caught by his hands from insult
and from death.  Outside her door he hesitated a moment,
then lifted the latch with a gentle touch, and went in
reverently.  The moon was shining into the room, and
one long beam trembled mistily just above the bed,
throwing upon the motionless form below a light like
that of the land wherein we walk in dreams.  Aline was
asleep.  She lay on her side, with one hand under her
cheek, and her loosened hair in a great swathe across the
bosom that scarcely seemed to lift beneath it, so deep
the tranced fatigue that held her.

The moon was still rising, and the beam slid lower,
lower; now it silvered her brow,—now showed the dark,
curled lashes lying upon a cheek white with that
translucent pallor—sleep's gift to youth.  Her chin was a
little lifted, the soft mouth relaxed, and its tender curve
had taken a look at once pitiful and pure, like that of a
child drowsing after pain.  Her eyelids were only
half-closed, and he was aware of the sleeping blue within, of
the deeper stain below; and all his heart went out to her
in a tremulous rapture of adoration which caught his
breath, and ran in fire through every vein.  How tired
she was, and how deeply asleep,—how young, and pure.

A thought of Hébert rose upon his shuddering mind,
and involuntarily words broke from him—"Ah, mon
Dieu!" he said, with heaving chest.

Aline stirred a little; a slow, fluttering sigh interrupted
her breathing, as she withdrew the hand beneath her
cheek and put it out gropingly.  Then she sighed again
and turned from the light, nestling into the pillow with
a movement that hid her face.  If Dangeau had gone to
her then, knelt by the bed, and put his arms about her,
she might have turned to his protecting love as
instinctively as ever child to its mother.  But that very love
withheld him.  That, and the thought of Hébert.  If
she should think him such another!  Oh, God forbid!

He looked once more, blessed her in his soul, and
turned away.

In the morning he was afoot betimes.  Danton had
set an early hour for the conclusion of the business
between them, and it was noon past before he returned.

In the shop he found a pale, dark, thin-lipped woman,
engaged in an extremely thorough scrubbing and tidying
of the premises.  She stopped him at once, with a
grin—

"I 'll have no loafing or gossiping here, Citizen"; and
received his explanation with perfect indifference.

"I am Charlotte Leboeuf.  I take everything over.
Bah! the state the house is in!  Fitter for pigs than
Christians.  For the time you may stay on.  You have
two rooms, you say?"

"Yes, two, Citoyenne."

"And you wish to keep them?  Well, I have no
objection.  Later on I shall dispose of the business, but
these are bad times for selling; and now, if the Citizen
will kindly not hinder me at my work any more for the
present."  She shrugged her shoulders expressively,
adding, as she seized the broom again, "Half the quarter has
been here already, but they got nothing out of me."

Aline had risen and dressed herself.  Rosalie had left
her room just as it was on the day of her arrest, and
the dust stood thick on table, floor, and window-sill.
Mechanically she began to set things straight; to dust
and arrange her few possessions, which lay just as they
had been left after the usual rummage for treasonable
papers.

Presently she found the work she had been doing, a
stitch half taken, the needle rusty.  She cleaned it
carefully, running it backwards and forwards through the
stuff of her skirt, and taking the work, she began to sew,
quickly, and without thought of anything except the
neat, fine stitches.

At Dangeau's knock, followed almost immediately by
his entrance, her hands dropped into her lap, and she
looked up in a scared panic of realisation.  All that she
had kept at bay rushed in upon her; the little tasks
which she had set as barriers between her and thought
fell away into the past, leaving her face to face with her
husband and the future.

He crossed the floor to her quickly, and took her
hands.  He felt them tremble, and put them to his lips.

"Aline, my dearest!" he said in a low, vibrating voice.

With a quick-caught breath she drew away from him,
sore trouble in her eyes.

"Wait!" she panted.  Oh, where was her courage?
Why had she not thought, planned?  What could she
say?  "Oh, please wait!"

There was a long pause, whilst he held her hands and
looked into her face.

"There is something—something I must tell you,"
she murmured at last, her colour coming and going.

The pressure upon her hands became suddenly agonising.

"Ah, mon Dieu! he has not harmed you?  Aline,
Aline—for God's sake——"

She said, "No, no," hastily, relieved to have something
to answer, wondering that he should be so moved,
frightened by the great sob that shook him.  Then—

"How do you know about—him?" and the words
came hardly from her.

"Rosalie," he said, catching at his self-control,—"Rosalie
told me—curse him—curse him!  Thank
God you are safe.  He cannot touch you now.  What
is it, then, my dear?" and the voice that had cursed
Hébert seemed to caress her.

"If you know—that"—the word came on a shudder—"you
know why I did—what I did—yesterday.  But
no—I forget; no one knew it all, no one knew the worst.
I could n't say it, but now I must—I must."

"My dear, leave it—leave it.  Why should you say
anything?"

But she took a long breath and went on, speaking very
low, and hurriedly, with bent head, and cheeks that
flamed with a shamed, crimson patch.

"He is a devil, I think; and when I said I would die,
he said—oh, mon Dieu!—he said his turn came first, he
had friends, he could get me into his power after I was
condemned."

Dangeau's arm went up—the arm with which he
would have killed Hébert had he stood before him—and
then fell protectingly about her shoulders.

"Aline, let him go—don't think of him again.  You
are safe—Death has given you back to me."  But she
shrank away.

"Oh, Monsieur," she said, with a quick gasp, "it was
not death that I feared—indeed it was not death.  I
could have died, I should have died, before I
betrayed—everything—as I did yesterday.  I should have died,
but there are some things too hard to bear.  Oh, I do
not think God can expect a woman to bear—that!"  Again
the deep shudder shook her.  "Then you came,
and I took the one way out, or let you take it."

"Aline!"

"No, no," she cried,—"no, no, you must understand—surely
you understand that there is too much between
us—we can never be—never be—oh, don't you
understand?"

Dangeau's face hardened.  The tenderness went out of
it, and his eyes were cold as steel.  How cruelly she was
stabbing him she did not know.  Her mind held dazed
to its one idea.  She had betrayed the honour of her
race, to save her own.  That red river of which she had
spoken long months before, it lay between them still,
only now she had stained her very soul with it.  But
not for profit of safety, not for pleasure of love, not even
for life, bare life, but to escape the last, worst insult life
holds—insult of which it is no disgrace to be afraid.  She
must make that clear to him, but it was so hard, so hard
to find words, and she was so tired, so bruised, she
hungered so for peace.  How easy to yield, to take life's
sweetness with the bitterness, love's promise with love's
pain!  But no, it were too base; the bitterness and the
pain were her portion.  His part escaped her.

When he spoke his changed voice startled her ears.

"So it comes to this," he said, with a short, bitter
laugh; "having to choose between me and Hébert, you
chose me.  Had the choice lain between me and death,
you would have gone to the guillotine without soiling
your fingers by touching me."

She looked at him—a bewildered, frightened look.

Pain spurred him on.

"Oh, you make it very clear, my wife.  Ah! that
makes you wince?  Yes, you are my wife, and you
have just told me that you would rather have died than
have married me.  Yesterday I kissed your forehead.
Is there a stain there?  Suppose I were to kiss you
now?  Suppose I were to claim what is mine?  What
then, Aline, what then?"

A look she had never seen before was in his eyes, as
he bent them upon her.  His breath came fast, and for
a moment her mind was terrified by the realisation that
her power to hold, to check him, was gone.  This was
a new Dangeau—one she had never seen.  She had
been so sure of him.  All her fears had been for
herself, for that rebel in her own heart; but she had thought
her self-control could give the law to his, and had never
for a moment dreamed that his could break down
thus, leaving her face to face with—what?  Was it the
brute?

She shrank, waiting.

"I am your husband, Aline," he said in a strange
voice.  "I could compel your kisses.  If I bade you
come to me now, what then?  Does your Church not
order wives to obey their husbands?"

She looked at him piteously.

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Yes, Monsieur?  Very well, then, since I order it,
and the Church tells you to obey me, come here and
kiss me, my wife."

That drew a shiver from her, but she came slowly
and stood before him with such a look of appeal as
smote him through all his bitter anger.

"You will obey?"

She spoke, agonised.

"You can compel me.  Ah! you have been good to
me—I have thought you good—you will not——"

He laid his hands heavily upon her shoulders and
felt her shrink.  Oh death—the pain of it!  He thought
of her lying in the moonlight, and the confiding innocence
of her face.  How changed now!—all drawn and terrified.
Hébert had seen it so.  He spoke his thought roughly.

"Is that how you looked at him?" he said, bending
over her, and she felt her whole body quiver as he spoke.
She half closed her eyes, and looked about to swoon.

"Yes, I can compel you," he said again, low and
bitterly.  "I can compel you, but I 'm not Hébert, Aline,
and I shan't ask you to choose between me and death."  He
took his hands away and stepped back from her,
breathing hard.

"I kissed you once, but I shall never kiss you again.
I shall never touch you against your will, you need not
be afraid.  That I have loved you will not harm you,—you
can forget it.  That you must call yourself Dangeau,
instead of Roche, need not matter to you so greatly.  I
shall not trouble you again, so you need not wish you
had chosen my rival, Death.  Child, child! don't look
at me like that!"

As he spoke Aline sank into a chair, and laying her
arms upon the table, she put her head down on them
with a sharp, broken cry:

"Oh God, what have I done—what have I done?"

Dangeau looked at her with a sort of strained pity.
Then he laughed again that short, hard laugh, which
comes to some men instead of a sob.

"Mlle de Rochambeau has married out of her order,
but since her plebeian husband quite understands his
place, quite understands that a touch from him would
be worse than death, and since he is fool enough to
accept this proud position, there is not so much harm
done, and you may console yourself, poor child."

Every word stabbed deep, and deeper.  How she had
hurt him—oh, how she had hurt him!  She pressed her
burning forehead against her trembling hands, and felt
the tears run hot, as if they came from her very heart.

Dangeau had reached the door when he turned
suddenly, came back and laid his hand for a moment
on her shoulder.  Even at that moment, to touch her
was a poignant and wonderful thing, but he drew back
instantly, and spoke in a harsh tone.

"One thing I have a right to ask—that you remember
that you bear my name, that you bear in mind that I
have pledged my honour for you.  You have been at the
Abbaye; I hear the place is honeycombed with plots.
My wife must not plot.  If I have saved your honour,
remember you hold mine.  I pledged it to the people
yesterday, I pledged it to Danton to-day."

Aline raised her head proudly.  Her eyes were steady
behind the brimming tears.

"Monsieur, your honour is safe," she said, with a thrill
in her voice.

Dangeau gazed long at her—something of the look
upon his face with which a man takes his farewell of
the beloved dead.  Then his whole face set cool and
hard, and without another word he turned and strode
out, his dreamed-of home in ruins—love's ashes heaped
and dusty on the cold and broken hearth.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A ROYALIST PLOT`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium

   A ROYALIST PLOT

.. vspace:: 2

Charlotte Leboeuf was one of the people who
would certainly have set cleanliness above godliness,
and she sacrificed comfort to it with a certain
ruthless pleasure.  The house she declared to be a
sty, impossible to cleanse, but she would do her best,
and her best apparently involved a perpetual steam of
hot water, and a continual reek of soap-suds.  Dangeau
put up more than one sigh at the shrine of the absent
Rosalie as he stumbled over pails and brooms, or slipped
on the damp floor.  For the rest, the old life had begun
again, but with a dead, dreary weight upon it.

Dangeau at his busy writing, at his nightly pacings,
and Aline at her old task of embroidering, felt the
burden of life press heavily, chafed at it for a moment,
perhaps, and turned again with a sigh to toil,
unsweetened by that nameless something which is the salt
of life.  Once he ventured on a half-angry remonstrance
on the long hours of stitching, which left her face so
pale and her eyes so tired.  It was not necessary for
his wife, he began, but at the first word so painful a
colour stained her cheek, eyes so proudly distressed
looked at him between imploring and defiance, that he
stammered, drew a long breath, and turned away with a
sound, half groan, half curse.  Aline wept bitterly when
he was gone, worked harder than before, and life went
drearily enough for a week or so.

Then one day in July Dangeau received orders to go
South again.  He had known they would come, and the
call to action was what he craved, and yet what to do
with the girl who bore his name he could not tell.

He was walking homewards, revolving a plan in his
mind, when to his surprise he saw Aline before him, and
not alone.  Beside her walked a man in workman's dress,
and they were in close conversation.  As he caught
sight of them they turned down a small side street, and
after a moment's amazed hesitation he took the same
direction, walking slowly, but ready to interfere if he
saw cause.

Earlier in the afternoon, Aline having finished her
work, had tied it up neatly and gone out.  The streets
were a horror to her, but she was obliged to take her
embroidery to the woman who disposed of it, and on
these hot days she craved for air.  She accomplished
her business, and started homewards, walking slowly,
and enjoying the cool breeze which had sprung up.  As
she turned out of the more frequented thoroughfares, a
man, roughly dressed, passed her, hung on his footsteps
a little, and as she came up to him, looked sharply at
her, and said in a low voice, "Mlle de Rochambeau?"

She started, her heart beating violently, and was
about to walk on, when coming still nearer her, he
glanced all round and rapidly made the sign of the cross
in the air.  With a sudden shock she recognised the
Abbé Loisel.

"It is M. l'Abbé?" she said in a voice as low as his own.

"Yes, it is I.  Walk on quietly, and do not appear to
be specially attentive.  I saw you last at the Abbaye,
how is it that I meet you here?"

A slight colour rose to Aline's cheek.  Her tone
became distant.

"I think you are too well informed as to what passes
in Paris not to know, M. l'Abbé," she said.

They came out into a little crowd of people as she
spoke, and he walked on without replying, his thoughts
busy.

Part saint, part conspirator, he had enough of the
busybody in his composition to make his position as arch
manipulator of Royalist plots a thoroughly congenial
one.  In Mlle de Rochambeau he saw a ravelled thread,
and hastened to pick it up, with the laudable intention of
working it into his network of intrigue.  They came
clear of the press, and he turned to her, his pale face
austerely plump, his restless eyes hard.

"I heard what I could hardly believe," he returned.
"I heard that Henri de Rochambeau's daughter had
bought her life by accepting marriage with an atheist
and a regicide, a Republican Deputy of the name of
Dangeau."

Aline bit her lip, her eyes stung.  She would not
justify herself to this man.  There was only one man
alive who mattered enough for that, but it was bitter
enough to hear, for this was what all would say.  She
had known it all along, but realisation was keen, and
she shrank from the pictured scorn of Mme de Matigny's
eyes and from Marguerite's imagined recoil.  She walked
on a little way before she could say quietly:

"It is true that I am married to M. Dangeau."

But the Abbé had seen her face quiver, and drew his
own conclusions.  He was versed in reading between the
lines.

"Mme de Matigny suffered yesterday," he said with
intentional abruptness, and Aline gave a low cry.

"Marguerite—not Marguerite!" she cried out, and he
touched her arm warningly.

"Not quite so loud, if you please, Madame, and
control your features better.  Yes, that is not so bad.
And now allow me to ask you a question.  Why should
Mlle de Matigny's fate interest the wife of the regicide
Dangeau?"

"M. l'Abbé, for pity's sake, tell me, she is not
dead—little Marguerite?"

"Not this time, Madame, but who knows when the
blow will fall?  But there, it can matter very little to
you."

"To me?" She sighed heavily.  "It matters greatly.
M. l'Abbé; I do not forget my friends.  I have not so
many that I can forget them."

"You remember?"

"Oh, M. l'Abbé!"

"And you would help them?"

"If I could."

He paused, scrutinising her earnest face.  Then he
said slowly:

"You bought your life at a great price, and something
is due to those whom you left behind you in peril
whilst you went out to safety.  I knew your father.  It
is well that he is dead—yes, I say that it is well; but
there is an atonement possible.  In that you are happy.
From where you are, you can hold out a hand to those
who are in danger; you may do more, if you have the
courage, and—if we can trust you."

His keen look dwelt on her, and saw her face change
suddenly, the eager light go out of it.

"M. l'Abbé, you must not tell me anything," she said
quickly, catching her breath; for Dangeau's voice had
sounded suddenly in her memory:

"I have pledged my honour"; and she heard the
ring of her own response—"Monsieur, your honour is
safe."  She had answered so confidently, and now,
whatever she did, dishonour seemed imminent, unavoidable.

"You have indeed gone far," he said.  "You must
not hear—I must not tell.  What does it mean?  Who
forbids?"

Aline turned to him desperately.

"M. l'Abbé, my hands are tied.  You spoke just now
of M. Dangeau, but you do not know him.  He is a
good man—an honourable man.  He has protected me
from worse than death, and in order to do this he risked
his own life, and he pledged his honour for me that I
would engage in no plots—do nothing against the
Republic.  When I let him make that pledge, and
what drove me to do so, lies between me and my own
conscience.  I accepted a trust, and I cannot betray it."

"Fine words," said Loisel curtly.  "Fine words.
Dutiful words from a daughter of the Church.  Let me
remind you that an oath taken under compulsion is not
binding."

"He said that he had pledged his honour, and I told
him that his honour was safe.  I do not break a pledge,
M. l'Abbé."

"So for a word spoken in haste to this atheist, to
this traitor stained with your King's blood, you will
allow your friends to perish, you will throw away their
lives and your own chance of atoning for the scandal of
your marriage—" he began; but she lifted her head
with a quick, proud gesture.

"M. l'Abbé, I cannot hear such words."

"You only have to raise your voice a little more and
you will hear no more words of mine.  See, there is a
municipal guard.  Tell him that this is the Abbé Loisel,
non-juring priest, and you will be rid of me easily
enough.  You will find it harder to stifle the voice of
your own conscience.  Remember, Madame, that there
is a worse thing even than dishonour of the body, and
that is damnation of the soul.  If you have been preserved
from the one, take care how you fall into the other.
What do you owe to this man who has seduced you
from your duty?  Nothing, I tell you.  And what do
you owe to your Church and to your order?  Can you
doubt?  Your obedience, your help, your repentance."

The Abbé had raised his voice a little as he spoke.
The street before them was empty, and he was unaware
that they were being followed.  A portion of what he
said reached Dangeau's ears, for the prolonged conversation
had made him uneasy, and he had hastened his
steps.  Up to now he had caught no word of what was
passing, but Aline's gestures were familiar to him, and
he recognised that lift of the head which was always
with her a signal of distress.  Now he had caught
enough, and more than enough, and a couple of strides
brought him level with them.  Aline started violently,
and looked quickly from Dangeau to the priest, and
back again at Dangeau.  He was very stern, and wore
an expression of indignant contempt which was new to her.

"Good-day, Citizen," he said, with a sarcastic inflexion.
"I will relieve you of the trouble of escorting my
wife any farther."

Loisel was wondering how much had been overheard,
and wished himself well out of the situation.  He was
not in the least afraid of going to prison or to the
guillotine, but there were reasons enough and to spare
why his liberty at the present juncture was imperative.
One of the many plots for releasing the Queen was
in progress, and he carried upon him papers of the first
importance.  It was to serve this plot that he had made
a bid for Aline's help.  In her unique position she
might have rendered priceless services, but it was not
to be, and he hastened to extricate himself from a
position which threatened disaster to his central
scheme.

"Good-day," he returned with composure, and was
moving off, when Dangeau detained him with a gesture.

"One moment, Citizen.  I neither know your name
nor do I wish to know it, but it seemed to me that
your conversation was distressing to my wife.  I very
earnestly deprecate any renewal of it, and should my
wishes in the matter be disregarded I should conceive
it my duty to inform myself more fully—but I think
you understand me, Citizen?"

So this was the husband?  A strong man, not the
type to be hoodwinked, best to let the girl go; but as
the thoughts flashed on his mind, he was aware of her
at his elbow.

"M. l'Abbé," she said very low, "tell Marguerite—tell
her—oh! ask her not to think hardly of me.  I
pray for her always, I hope to see her again, and I will
do what I can."

She ran back again, without waiting for a reply, and
walked in silence by Dangeau's side until they reached
the house.  He made no attempt to speak, but on the
landing he hesitated a moment, and then followed her
into her room.

"Danton spoke to me this morning," he said, moving
to the window, where he stood looking out.  "They
want me to go South again.  Lyons is in revolt, and is
to be reduced by arms.  Dubois-Crancy commands, but
Bonnet has fallen sick, and I am to take his place."

Aline had seated herself, and picked up a strip of
muslin.  Under its cover her hands clasped each other
very tightly.  When he paused she said: "Yes, Monsieur."

"I am to start immediately."

"Yes, Monsieur."

He swung round, looked at her angrily for a moment,
and then stared again into the dirty street.

"It is a question of what you are to do," he said
impatiently.

"I?  But I shall stay here.  What else is there for me
to do?"

"I cannot leave you alone in Paris again."

"Monsieur?"

"What!" he cried.  "Have you forgotten?" and she
bent to hide her sudden pallor.

"What am I to do, then?" she asked very low.  Her
submission at once touched and angered him.  It allured
by its resemblance to a wife's obedience, and repelled
because the resemblance was only mirage, and not
reality.

"I cannot have you here, I cannot take you with me,
and there is only one place I can send you to—a little
place called Rancy-les-Bois, about thirty miles from
Paris.  My mother's sisters live there, and I should ask
them to receive you."

"I will do as you think best," murmured Aline.

"They are unmarried, one is an invalid, and they are
good women.  It is some years since I have seen them,
but I remember my Aunt Ange was greatly beloved in
Rancy.  I think you would be safe with her."

A vision of safety and a woman's protection rose
persuasively before Aline, and she looked up with a
quick, confiding glance that moved Dangeau strangely.
She was at once so rigid and so soft, so made for love
and trusting happiness, and yet so resolute to repel it.
He bit his lip as he stood looking at her, and a sort of
rage against life and fate rose hotly, unsubdued within
him.  He turned to leave her, but she called him back,
in a soft, hesitating tone that brought back the days of
their first intercourse.  When he looked round he saw
that she was pale and agitated.

"Monsieur!" she stammered, and seemed afraid of her
own voice; and all at once a wild stirring of hope set his
heart beating.

"What is it?  Won't you tell me?" he said; and
again she tried to speak and broke off, then caught her
courage and went on.

"Oh, Monsieur, if you would do something!"

"Why, what is it you want me to do, child?"

That was almost his old kind look, and it emboldened
her.  She rose and leaned towards him, clasping her
hands.

"Oh, Monsieur, you have influence—" and at that
his brow darkened.

"What is it?" he said.

"I heard—I heard—"  She stopped in confusion.
"Oh! it is my friend, Marguerite de Matigny.  Her
grandmother is dead, and she is alone.  Monsieur, she
is only seventeen, and such a pretty child, so gay, and
she has done no harm to any one.  It is impossible
that she could do any harm."

"I thought you had no friends?"

"No, I had none; but in the prison they were good to
me—all of them.  Old Madame de Matigny knew my
parents, and welcomed me for their sakes; but
Marguerite I loved.  She was like a kitten, all soft and
caressing.  Monsieur, if you could see her, so little, and
pretty—just a child!"  Her eyes implored him, but
his were shadowed by frowning brows.

"Is that what the priest told you to say?" he asked
harshly.

"The priest——"

"You 'd lie to me," he broke out, and stopped himself.
"Do you think I didn't recognise the look, the tone?
Did he put words into your mouth?"

Her eyes filled.

"He told me about Marguerite," she said simply.
"He told me she was alone, and it came into my heart
to ask you to help her.  I have no one to ask but you."

The voice, the child's look would have disarmed him,
but the words he had overheard came back, and made
his torment.

"If it came into your heart, I know who put it there,"
he said.  "And what else came with it?  What else
were you to do?  Do you forget I overheard?  If
I thought you had lent yourself to be a tool, to influence,
to bribe—mon Dieu, if I thought that——"

"Monsieur!" but the soft, agitated protest fell unheard.

"I should kill you—yes, I think that I should kill
you," he said in a cold, level voice.

She moved a step towards him then, and if her voice
had trembled, her eyes were clear and untroubled as
they met his full.

"You shall not need to," she said quietly, and there
was a long pause.

It was he who looked away at last, and then she spoke.

"I asked you at no one's prompting," she said softly.
"See, Monsieur, let there be truth between us.  That
at least I can give, and will—yes, always.  He, the man
you saw, asked me to help him, to help others, and I
told him no, my hands were tied.  If he had asked for
ever, I must still have said the same thing; and if it
had cut my heart in two, I would still have said it.  But
about Marguerite, that was different.  She knows nothing
of any plots, she is no conspirator.  I would not ask,
if it touched your honour.  I would not indeed."

"Are you sure?" he asked in a strange voice, and
she answered his question with another.

"Would you have pledged your honour if you had not
been sure?"

He gave a short, hard laugh.

"Upon my soul, child, I think so," he said, and the
colour ran blazing to her face.

"Oh, Monsieur, I keep faith!" she cried in a voice that
came from her heart.

Her outstretched hands came near to touching him,
and he turned away with a sudden wrench of his whole
body.

"And it is hard—yes, hard enough," he said bitterly,
and went out with a mist before his eyes.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A NEW ENVIRONMENT`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium

   A NEW ENVIRONMENT

.. vspace:: 2

Madelon Pinel stood by the window of the inn
parlour, and looked out with round shining eyes.
She was in a state of pleasing excitement, and her comely
cheeks vied in colour with the carnation riband in her
cap, for this was her first jaunt with her husband since
their marriage, and an expedition from quiet Rancy to
the eight-miles-distant market-town was a dissipation of
the most agreeable nature.  The inn looked out on the
small, crowded Place, where a great traffic of buying and
selling, of cheapening and haggling was in process, and
she chafed with impatience for her husband to finish his
wine, and take her out into the thick of it again.  He,
good man, miller by the flour on his broad shoulders,
stood at his ease beside her, smiling broadly.  No one,
he considered, could behold him without envy; for
Madelon was the acknowledged belle of the countryside,
and well dowered into the bargain.  Altogether, a man
very pleased with life, and full of pride in his married
state, as he lounged beside his pretty wife, and drank
his wine, one arm round her neat waist.

With a roll and a flourish the diligence drew up,
and Madelon's excitement grew.

"Ah, my friend, look—look!" she cried.  "There will
be passengers from Paris.  Oh!  I hope it is full.
No—what a pity!  There are only four.  See then, Jean
Jacques, the fat old man with the nose.  It is redder
than Gargoulet's and one would have said that was
impossible.  And the little man like a rat.  Fie! he
has a wicked eye, that one—I declare he winked at me";
and she drew back, darting a virtuously coquettish glance
at the unperturbed Jean Jacques.

"Not he," he observed with complete tranquillity.
"Calm thyself, Madelon.  Thou art no longer the
prettiest girl in Rancy, but a sober matron.  Thy
winking days are over."

"My winking days!" exclaimed Madelon,—"my winking
days indeed!"  She tossed her head with feigned
displeasure and leaned out again, wide-eyed.

A third passenger had just alighted, and stood by the
door of the diligence holding out a hand to some one yet
unseen.

"Seigneur!" cried Madelon maliciously; "look there,
Jean Jacques, if that is not a fine man!"

"What, the rat?" grinned the miller.

"No, stupid!—the handsome man by the door there,
he with the tricolour sash.  Ciel! what a sash!  What
can he be, then,—a Deputy, thinkest thou?  Oh, I
hope he is a Deputy.  There, now there is a woman
getting out—he helps her down, and now he turns
this way.  They are coming in.  Eh! what blue
eyes he has!  Well, I would not have him angry
with me, that one; I should think his eyes would
scorch like lightning."

"Eh, Madelon, how you talk!"

"There, they are on the step.  Hold me then, Jean
Jacques, or I shall fall.  Do you think the woman is his
wife?  How white she is!—but quite young, not older
than I.  And her hair—oh, but that is pretty!  I wish I
had hair like that—all gold in the sun."

"Thy hair is well enough," said the enamoured Jean
Jacques.  "There, come back a little, Madelon, or thou
wilt fall out.  They are coming in."

Madelon turned from the window to watch the door,
and in a minute Dangeau and Aline came in.  For a
moment Aline looked timidly round, then seeing the
pleasant face and shining brown eyes of the miller's
wife, she made her way gratefully towards her, and
sat down on the rough bench which ran along the
wall.  Madelon disengaged herself from her husband's
arm, gave him a little push in Dangeau's direction,
and sat down too, asking at once, with a stare of frank
curiosity:

"You are from Paris?  All the way from Paris?"

"Yes, from Paris," said Aline rather wearily.

"Ciel!  That is a distance to come.  Are you not tired?"

"Just a little, perhaps."

"Paris is a big place, is it not?  I have never been
there, but my father has.  He left the inn for a month
last year, and went to Paris, and saw all the sights.  Yes,
he went to the Convention Hall, and heard the Deputies
speak.  Would any one believe there were so many of
them?  Four hundred and more, he said.  Every one
did not believe him,—Gargoulet even laughed, and spat
on the floor,—but my father is a very truthful man, and
not at all boastful.  He would not say such a thing
unless he had seen it, for he does not believe everything
that he is told—oh no!  For my part, I believed him,
and Jean Jacques too.  But imagine then, four hundred
Deputies all making speeches!"

Aline could not help laughing.

"Yes, I believe there are quite as many as that.  My
husband is one of them, you know."

"Seigneur!" exclaimed Madelon.  "I said so.  Where
is that great stupid of mine?  I said the Citizen was a
Deputy—at once I said it!"

"Why, how did you guess?"

"Oh, by the fine tricolour sash," said Madelon
naively; "and then there is a look about him, is there
not?  Do you not think he has the air of being a Deputy?"

"I do not know," said Aline, smiling.

"Well, I think so.  And now I will tell you another
thing I said.  I said that he could be angry, and that
then I should not like to meet his eyes, they would be
like blue fire.  Is that true too?"

Aline was amused by the girl's confiding chatter.

"I do not think he is often angry," she said.

"Ah, but when he is," and Madelon nodded airily.
"Those that are angry often—oh, well, one gets used to
it, and in the end one takes no notice.  It is like a
kettle that goes on boiling until at last the water is all
boiled away.  But when one is like the Citizen Deputy,
not angry often—oh, then that can be terrible, when it
comes!  I should think he was like that."

"Perhaps," said Aline, still smiling, but with a little
contraction of the heart, as she remembered anger she
had roused and faced.  It did not frighten her, but it
made her heart beat fast, and had a strange fascination
for her now.  Sometimes she even surprised a longing
to heap fuel on the fire, to make it blaze high—high
enough to melt the ice in which she had encased herself.

Then her own thought startled her, and she turned
quickly to her companion.

"Is that your husband?" she asked, for the sake of
saying something.

"Yes, indeed," said Madelon.  "He is a fine man, is
he not?  He and the Citizen Deputy are talking
together.  They seem to have plenty to say—one would say
they were old friends.  Yes, that is my Jean Jacques;
he is the miller of Rancy-les-Bois.  We have travelled
too, for Rancy is eight miles from here, and a road to
break your heart."

"From Rancy—you come from Rancy?" said Aline,
with a little, soft, surprised sound.

"Yes, from Rancy.  Did I not say my father kept the
inn there?  But I have been married two months now";
and she twisted her wedding ring proudly.

"I am going to Rancy," said Aline on the impulse.

"You, Citoyenne?" and Madelon's brown eyes became
completely round with surprise.

Aline nodded.  She liked this girl with the light
tongue and honest red cheeks.  It was pleasant to talk
to her after four hours of tense silence, during the most
part of which she had feigned sleep, and even then had
been aware of Dangeau's eyes upon her face.

"Yes," she said.  "Does that surprise you so much?
My husband goes South on mission, and I am to stay
with his aunts at Rancy.  They have written to say that
I am welcome."

"Oh!" cried Madelon quickly.  "Then I know who
you are.  Stupid that I am, not to have guessed before!
All the world knows that the Citoyennes Desaix have a
nephew who is a Deputy, and you must be his wife—you
must be the Citoyenne Dangeau."

"Yes," said Aline.

"To be sure, if I had seen the Citoyenne Ange, she
would have told me you were coming; but it is ten days
since I saw her to speak to—there has been so much to
do in the house.  She will be pleased to have you.  Both
of them will be pleased.  If they are proud of the
nephew who is a Deputy—Seigneur!" and Madelon's
plump brown hands were waved high and wide to express
the pride of Dangeau's aunts.

"Yes?" said Aline again.

"But of course.  It is a fine thing nowadays, a very
fine thing indeed.  All the world would turn out to look
at him if he came to Rancy.  What a pity he must go
South!  Have you been married long?"

Aline was vexed to feel the colour rise to her cheeks
as she answered:

"No—not long."

"And already he must leave you!  That is hard—yes,
I find that very hard.  If Jean Jacques were to go away,
I should certainly be inconsolable.  Before one is married
it is different; one has a light heart, one is quick to
forget.  If a man goes, one does not care—there are
always plenty more.  But when one is married, then
it is another story; then there is something that hurts
one at the heart when they are not there—n'est-ce pas?"

Aline turned a tell-tale face away, and Madelon edged
a little nearer.

"Later on, again, they say one does not mind so much.
There are the children, you see, and that makes all the
difference.  For me, I hope for a boy—a strong, fat boy
like Marie my sister-in-law had last year.  Ah! that
was a boy! and I hope mine will be just such another.
If one has a girl, one feels as if one had committed
a bêtise, do you not think so?—or"—with a polite
glance at the averted face—"perhaps you desire a girl,
Citoyenne?"

Aline felt an unbearable heat assail her, for suddenly
her old dream flashed into her mind, and she saw herself
with a child in her arms—a wailing, starving child with
sad blue eyes.  With an indistinct murmur she started
up and moved a step or two towards the door, and as she
did so, Dangeau nodded briefly to the miller, and came to
meet her.

"We are fortunate," he said,—"really very fortunate.
These worthy people are the miller of Rancy and his
wife, as no doubt she has told you.  I saw you were
talking together."

"Yes, it is strange," said Aline.

"Nothing could have been more convenient, since they
will be able to take you to my aunt's very door.  I have
spoken to the miller, and he is very willing.  Nothing
could have fallen out better."

"And you?" faltered Aline, her eyes on the ground.

"I go on at once.  You know my orders—'to lose no
time.'  If it had been necessary, I should have taken you
to Rancy, but as it turns out I have no excuse for not
going on at once."

"At once?" she repeated in a little voice like a child's.

He nodded, and walked to the window, where he stood
looking out for a moment.

"The horses are in," he said, turning again.  "It is
time I took my seat."

He passed out, saluting Pinel and Madelon, who was
much elated by his bow.

Aline followed him into the square, and saw that the
other two passengers were in their places.  Her heart
had begun to beat so violently that she thought it
impossible that he should not hear it, but he only threw her
a grave, cold look.

"You will like perhaps to know that your friend's case
came on yesterday and that she was set free.  There was
nothing against her," he said, with some constraint.

"Marguerite?"

"Yes, the Citoyenne Matigny.  She is free.  I thought
you would be glad to know."

"Yes—yes—oh, thank you!  I am glad!"

"You will tell my aunts that my business was
pressing, or I should have visited them.  Give them my
greetings.  They will be good to you."

"Yes—the letter was kind."

"They are good women."  He handed her a folded
paper.  "This is my direction.  Keep it carefully, and
if you need anything, or are in any trouble, you will
write."  His voice made it an order, not a request, and
she winced.

"Yes," she said, with stiff lips.

Dangeau's face grew harder.  If it were only over,
this parting!  He craved for action—longed to be away—to
be quit of this intolerable strain.  He had kept
his word, he had assured her safety, let him be gone out
of her life, into such a life as a man might make for
himself, in the tumult and flame of war.

"Seigneur!" said Madelon, at the window.  "See,
Jean Jacques,"—and she nudged that patient man,—"see
how he looks at her!  Ma foi, I am glad it is not I!
And with a face as if it had been cut out of stone, and
there he gets in without so much as a touch of the hand,
let alone a kiss!  Is this the way of it in Paris?"

"Thou must still be talking, Madelon," said Jean
Jacques, complacently.

"Well, I should not like it," shrugged Madelon
pettishly.

"No, I 'll warrant you wouldn't," said the miller,
with a grin and a hearty kiss.

At four o'clock the business and pleasure of the
market-day were over, and the folk began to jog home
again.  Aline sat beside Madelon on the empty
meal-sacks, and looked about her with a vague curiosity as
they made their way through the poplar-bordered lanes,
bumping prodigiously every now and then, in a manner
that testified to the truth of Madelon's description of the
road.

It was one of the days that seems to have drawn out
all summer's beauty, whilst keeping yet faint memories
of spring, and hinting in its breadth of evening shade
at autumn's mellowness.

Madelon chattered all the way, but Aline's thoughts
were too busy to be distracted.  She thought continually
of the smouldering South and its dangers, of the
thousand perils that menaced Dangeau, and of the bitter
hardness of his face as he turned from her at the last.

Jean Jacques let the reins fall loose after a while,
and turning at his ease, slipped his arm about his wife's
waist and drew her head to his shoulder.  Aline's eyes
smarted with sudden tears.  Here were two happy
people, here was love and home, and she out in the cold,
barred out by a barrier of her own raising.  Oh! if he
had only looked kindly at the last!—if he had smiled,
or taken her hand!

They came over the brow of a little hill, and dipped
towards the wooded pocket where Rancy lay, among its
trees, watched from half-way up the hill by an old grey
stone château, on the windows of which the setting sun
shone full, showing them broken and dusty.

"Who lives in the château?" asked Aline suddenly.

"No one—now," returned Jean Jacques; and Madelon
broke in quickly.

"It was the château of the Montenay but a year ago.—Now
why dost thou nudge me, Jean Jacques?—A year
ago, I say, it was pillaged.  Not by our own people, but
by a mob from the town.  They broke the windows and
the furniture, and hunted high and low for traitors, and
then went back again to where they came from.  There
was nobody there, so not much harm done."

"De Montenay?" said Aline in a low voice.  How
strange!  So this was why the name of Rancy had
seemed familiar from the first.  They were of her kin,
the De Montenay.

"Yes, the De Montenay," said Madelon, nodding.
"They were great folk once, and now there is only the
old Marquise left, and she has emigrated.  She is very
old now, but do you know they say the De Montenay
can only die here?  However ill they are in a foreign
place, the spirit cannot pass, and I always wonder will
the old Marquise come back, for she is a Montenay by
birth as well as by marriage?"

"Eh, Madelon, how you talk!" said Jean Jacques,
with an uneasy lift of his floury shoulders.  He picked
up the reins and flicked the mare's plump sides with a
"Come up, Suzette; it grows late."

Madelon tossed her head.

"It is true, all the same," she protested.  "Why,
there was M. Réné,—all the world knows how she
brought M. Réné here to die."

"Chut then, Madelon!" said the miller, in a decided
tone this time; and, as she pouted, he spoke over his
shoulder in a low voice, and Aline caught the words,
"Ma'mselle Ange," whereon Madelon promptly echoed
"Ma'mselle" with a teasing inflexion.

Jean Jacques became angry, and the back of his neck
seemed to well over the collar of his blouse, turning
very red as it did so.

"Tiens, Citoyenne Ange, then.  Can a man remember
all the time?" he growled, and flicked Suzette again.
Madelon looked penitent.

"No, no, my friend," she said soothingly; "and the
Citoyenne here understands well enough, I am sure.
It is that my father is so good a patriot," she explained,
"and he grows angry if one says Monsieur, Madame, or
Mademoiselle any more.  It must be Citizen and
Citoyenne to please him, because we are all equal now.
And Jean Jacques is quite as good a patriot as my
father—oh, quite; but it is, see you, a little hard to
remember always, for after all he has been saying the
other for nearly forty years."

"Yes, it is hard always to remember," Aline agreed.

They came down into the shadow under the hill, and
turned into the village street.  The little houses lay all
a-straggle along it, with the inn about half-way down.
Madelon pointed out this cottage and that, named the
neighbours, and informed Aline how many children they
had.  Jean Jacques did not make any contribution to
the talk until they were clear of the houses, when he
raised his whip, and pointing ahead, said:

"Now we are almost there—see, that is the house,
the white one amongst those trees"; and in a moment
Aline realised that she was nervous, and would be very
thankful when the meeting with Dangeau's aunts should
be over.  Even as she tried to summon her courage, the
cart drew up at the little white gate, and she found
herself being helped down, whilst Madelon pressed her
hands and promised to come and see her soon.

"The Citoyenne Ange knows me well enough," she
said, laughing.  "She taught me to read, and tried to
make me wise, but it was too hard."

"There, there, come, Madelon.  It is late," said the
miller.  "Good evening, Citoyenne.  Come up, Suzette";
and in a moment Aline was alone, with her modest
bundle by her side.  She opened the gate, and found
herself in a very pretty garden.  The evening light
slanted across the roof of the small white house, which
stood back from the road with a modest air.  It had
green shutters to every window, and green creepers
pushed aspiring tendrils everywhere.  The garden was
all aflash with summer, and the air fragrant with
lavender, a tall hedge of which presented a surface of dim,
sweet greenery, and dimmer, sweeter bloom.  Behind
the lavender was a double row of tall dark-eyed
sunflowers, and in front blazed rose and purple phlox,
carnations white and red, late larkspur, and
gilly-flowers.

Such a feast of colour had not been spread before
Aline's town-wearied eyes for many and many a long
month, and the beauty of it came into her heart like the
breath of some strong cordial.  At the open door of the
house were two large myrtle trees in tubs.  The white
flowers stood thick amongst the smooth dark leaves, and
scented all the air with their sweetness.  Aline set down
her bundle, and went in, hesitating, and a murmur of
voices directing her, she turned to the right.

It was dark after the evening glow outside, but the
light shone through an open door, and she made her way
to it, and stood looking in, upon a small narrow room,
very barely furnished as to tables and chairs, but most
completely filled with children of all ages.

They sat in rows, some on the few chairs, some on the
floor, and some on the laps of the elder ones.  Here and
there a tiny baby dozed in the lap of an older girl, but
for the most part they were from three years old and
upwards.

All had clean, shining faces, and on the front of each
child's dress was pinned a tricolour bow, whilst on the
large corner table stood a coarse pottery jar stuffed full
of white Margaret daisies, scarlet poppies, and bright
blue cornflowers.  Aline frowned a little impatiently
and tapped with her foot on the floor, but no one took
any notice.  A tall lady with her back to the door was
apparently concluding a tale to which all the children
listened spellbound.

"Yes, indeed," Aline heard her say, in a full pleasant
voice,—"yes, indeed, children, the dragon was most
dreadfully fierce and wicked.  His eyes shot out sparks,
hot like the sparks at the forge, and flames ran out of his
mouth so that all the ground was scorched, and the grass
died.—Jeanne Marie, thou little foolish one, there is no
need to cry.  Have courage, and take Amelie's hand.
The brave youth will not be harmed, because of the
magic sword.—It was all very well for the dragon to
spit fire at him, but he could not make him afraid.  No,
indeed!  He raised the great sword in both hands, and
struck at the monster.  At the first blow the earth
shook, and the sea roared.  At the second blow the
clouds fell down out of the sky, and all the wild beasts
of the woods roared horribly, but at the third blow the
dragon's head was cut clean off, and he fell down dead at
the hero's feet.  Then the chains that were on the
wrists and ankles of the lovely lady vanished away, and
she ran into the hero's arms, free and beautiful."

A long sigh went up from the rows of children, and
one said regretfully:

"Is that all, Citoyenne?"

"That is all the story, my children; but now I shall
ask questions.  Félicité, say then, who is the young
hero?"

A big, sharp-eyed girl looked up, and said in a quick
sing-song, "He is the glorious Revolution and the dragon."

"Chut then,—I asked only for the hero.  It is
Candide who shall tell us who is the dragon."

Every one looked at Candide, who, for her part, looked
at the ceiling, as if seeking inspiration there.

"The dragon is—is—

"Come then, my child, thou knowest."

"Is he not a dragon, then?" said Candide, opening
eyes as blue as the sky, and quite as devoid of
intelligence.

"Little stupid one,—and the times I have told thee!
What is it, then, that the glorious Revolution has
destroyed?"

She paused, and half a dozen arms went up eagerly,
whilst as many voices clamoured:

"I know!"—"No, ask me!"—"No, me, Citoyenne!"—"No,
me!"—"Me!"

"What!  Jeanne knows?  Little Jeanne Marie, who
cried?  She shall say.  Tell us, then, my child,—who is
the dragon?"

Jeanne looked wonderfully serious.

"It is the tyranny of kings, is it not, chère Citoyenne?"

"Very good, little one.  And the lovely lady, who is
the lovely lady?"

"France—our beautiful France!" cried all the children
together.

Aline pushed the door quite wide and stepped forward,
and as she came into view all the children became as
quiet as mice, staring, and nudging one another.

At this, and the slight rustle of Aline's dress, Ange
Desaix turned round, and uttered a cry of surprise.
She was a tall woman, soft and ample of arm and bosom,
with dark, silvered hair laid in classic fashion about a
very nobly shaped head.  Her skin was very white
and soft, and her hazel eyes had a curious misty look,
like the hollows of a hill brimmed with a weeping haze
that never quite falls in rain.  They were brooding
eyes, and very peaceful, and they seemed to look right
through Aline and away to some place of dreams
beyond.  All this was the impression of a moment—this,
and the fact that the tall figure was all in white,
with a large breast-knot of the same three-coloured
flowers as stood in the jar.  Then the motherly arms
were round Aline, at once comfortable and appealing,
and Mlle Desaix' voice said caressingly, "My dear
niece, a thousand welcomes!"

After a moment she was quietly released, and Ange
Desaix turned to the children.

"Away with you, little ones, and come again to-morrow.
Louise and Marthe must give up their bows,
but the rest can keep them."

The indescribable hubbub of a party of children
preparing for departure arose, and Ange said smilingly,
"We are late to-day, but on market-day some are from
home, and like to know the children are safe with me."

As she spoke a little procession formed itself.  Each
child passed before Mlle Desaix, and received a kiss
and a smile.  Two little girls looked very downcast.
They sniffed loudly as they unpinned their ribbon bows
and gave them up.

"Another time you will be wise," said Ange
consolingly; and Louise and Marthe went out hanging
their heads.

"They chattered, instead of listening," explained Mlle
Desaix.  "I do not like punishments, but what will
you?  If children do not learn self-control, they grow
up so unhappy."

There was an alluring simplicity in voice and manner
that touched the child in Aline.  To her own surprise
she felt her eyes fill with tears—not the hot drops
which burn and sting, but the pleasant water of
sympathy, which refreshes the tired soul.  On the impulse
she said:

"It is good of you to let me come here.  I—I am
very grateful, chère Mademoiselle."

Ange put a hand on her arm.

"You will say 'ma tante,' will you not, dear child?
Our nephew is dear to us, and we welcome his wife.
Come then and see Marthe.  She suffers much, my
poor Marthe, and the children's chatter is too much
for her, so I do not take them into her room, except
now and then.  She likes to see little Jeanne sometimes,
and Candide, the little blue-eyed one.  Marthe says she
is like Nature—unconsciously stupid—and she finds that
refreshing, since like Nature she is so beautiful.  But
there, the child is well enough—we cannot all be clever."

Mlle Desaix led the way through the hall and up a
narrow stair as she spoke.  Outside a door on the
landing above she paused.

"But where, then, is Jacques—the dear Jacques?"

"After all he could not come," said Aline.  "His
orders were so strict,—'to press on without any delay,'—and
if he had lost the diligence, it would have kept
him twenty-four hours.  He charged me with many
messages."

"Ah," said Mlle Ange, "it will be a grief to Marthe.
I told her all the time that perhaps he would not be
able to come, but she counted on it.  But of course,
my dear, we understand that his duty must come
first—only," with a sigh, "it will disappoint my poor
Marthe."

She opened the door as she spoke, and they came
into a room all in the dark except for the afterglow
which filled the wide, square window.  A bed or couch
was drawn up to the open casement, and Aline took a
quick breath, for the profile which was relieved against
the light was startlingly like Dangeau's as she had seen
it at the coach window that morning.

Ange drew her forward.

"See then, Marthe," she said, "our new niece is
come, but alas, Jacques was not able to spare the time.
Business of the Republic that could not wait."

Marthe Desaix turned her head with a sharp
movement—a movement of restless pain.

"How do you do, my dear niece," she said, in a voice
that distinctly indicated quotation marks.  "As to
seeing, it is too dark to see anything but the sky."

"Yes, truly," said Ange; "I will get the lamp.  We
are late to-night, but the tale was a long one, and I
knew the market folk would be late on such a fine
evening."

She went out quickly, and Aline, coming nearer to
the window, uttered a little exclamation of pleasure.

"Ah, how lovely!" she said, just above her breath.

The window looked west through the open end of
the hollow where Rancy lay, and a level wash of gold
held the horizon.  Wing-like clouds of grey and purple
rested brooding above it, and between them shone the
evening star.  On either side the massed trees stood
black against the glow, and the scent of the lavender
came up like the incense of peace.

Marthe Desaix looked curiously at her, but all she
could see was a slim form, in the dusk.

"You find that better than lamplight?" she asked.

"I find it very beautiful," said Aline.  "It is so
long since I saw trees and flowers, and the sun going
down amongst the hills.  My window in Paris looked
into a street like a gutter, and one could only see, oh,
such a little piece of sky."

As she spoke Ange came in with a lamp, which she
set beside the bed; and immediately the glowing sky
seemed to fade and recede to an immeasurable distance.
In the lamplight the likeness which had startled Aline
almost disappeared.  Marthe Desaix' strong, handsome
features were in their original cast almost identical with
those of her nephew, but seen full face, they were so
blanched and lined with pain that the resemblance
was blurred, and the big dark eyes, like pools of ink,
had nothing in common with Dangeau's.

Aline herself was conscious of being looked up and
down.  Then Marthe Desaix said, with a queer twist of
the mouth:

"You did not live long in Paris, then?"

"It seemed a long time," said Aline.  "It seems years
when I try to look back, but it really is n't a year yet."

"You like the country?"

"Yes, I think so," faltered Aline, conscious of having
said too much.

"Poor child," said Ange.  "It is sad for you this
separation.  I know what you must feel.  You have
been married so short a time, and he has to leave you.
It is very hard, but the time will pass, and we will try
and make you happy."

"You are very good," said Aline in a low voice.
Then she looked and saw Mlle Marthe's eyes gazing at
her between perplexity and sarcasm.

When Aline was in bed, Ange heard her sister's views
at length.

"A still tongue 's best, my Ange, but between you
and me"—she shrugged her shoulders, and then bit her
lip, as the movement jarred her—"there is certainly
something strange about 'our new niece,' as you call her."

"Well, she is our nephew's wife," said Ange.

"Our nephew's wife, but no wife for our nephew, if
I'm not much mistaken," returned Marthe sharply.

"I thought she looked sweet, and good."

"Good, good—yes, we 're all good at that age!  Bless
my soul, Ange, if goodness made a happy marriage, the
devil would soon have more holidays than working days."

"Ma chérie, if any one heard you!"

"Well, they don't, and I should n't mind if they did.
What I do mind is that Jacques should have made a
marriage which will probably break his heart."

"But why, why?"

"Oh, my Angel, if you saw things under your nose as
clearly as you do those that are a hundred years away,
you would n't have to ask why."

"I saw nothing wrong," said Ange in a voice of distress.

"I did not say the girl was a thief, or a murderess,"
returned Marthe quickly.  "No, I 'll not tell you what I
mean,—not if you were to ask me on your knees,—not if
you were to beg it with your last breath."

Ange laughed a little.

"Well, well, dearest, perhaps I shall guess.  Good-night,
and sleep well."

"As if I ever slept well!"

"Poor darling!  Poor dearest!  Is it so bad to-night?
Let me turn the pillow.  Is it a little better so?"

"Perhaps."  Then as Ange reached the door:

"Angel!"

"What is it then, chérie?"

Mlle Marthe put a thin arm about her sister's neck
and drew her close.

"After all, I will tell you."

"Though I did not beg it on my knees?"

"Chut!"

"Or with my last breath?"

"Very well, then; if you do not wish to hear——"

"No, no; tell me."

"Well then, Ange, she is noble—that girl."

"Oh no!"

"I am sure of it.  The mystery, her coming here.
Why has she no relations, no friends?  And then her
look, her manner.  Why, the first tone of her voice
made me start."

"Oh no, he would not——"

"Would not?" scoffed Marthe.  "He 's a fool in love,
and I suppose she was in danger.  I tell you, I
suspected it at once when his letter came.  There, go to
bed, and dream of our connection with the aristocracy.
My faith, how times change!  It is an edifying world."

She pushed Ange away, and lay a long time watching
the stars.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AT HOME AND AFIELD`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium

   AT HOME AND AFIELD

.. vspace:: 2

Aline slept late in the morning after her arrival.
Everything was so fresh, and sweet, and clean
that it was a pleasure just to lie between the
lavender-scented sheets, and smell the softness of the summer
air which came in at the open casement.  She had
meant to rise early, but whilst she thought of it, she
slept again, drawn into the pleasant peace of the hour.

When she did awake the sun was quite high, and
she dressed hastily and went down into the garden.
Here she was aware of Mlle Ange, basket on arm,
busily snipping, cutting, and choosing amongst the low
herbs which filled this part of the enclosure.  She
straightened herself, and turned with a kind smile and
kiss, which called about her the atmosphere of home.
The look and touch seemed things at once familiar
and comfortable, found again after many days of loss.

"Are you rested then, my dear?" asked the pleasant
voice.  "Yesterday you looked so tired, and pale.  We
must bring some roses into those cheeks, or Jacques
will surely chide us when he comes."

On the instant the roses were there, and Aline stood
transfigured; but they faded almost at once, and left her
paler than before.

Mlle Ange opened her basket, and showed neat
bunches of green herbs disposed within.

"I make ointments and tinctures," she said, "and
to-day I must be busy, for some of the herbs I use are
at their best just now, and if they are not picked, will
spoil.  All the village comes to me for simples and
salves, so that between them, and the children, and my
poor Marthe, I am not idle."

"May I help?" asked Aline eagerly; and Mlle Ange
nodded a pleased "Yes, yes."

That was a pleasant morning.  The buzz of the bees,
the scent of the flowers, the warm freshness of the
day—all were delightful; and presently, to watch Ange
boiling one mysterious compound, straining another,
distilling a third, had all the charm of a child's new
game.  Life's complications fell back, leaving a little
space of peace like a fairy ring amongst new-dried grass.
Mlle Marthe lay on her couch knitting, and watching.
Every now and again she flashed a remark into the breathless
silence, on which Ange would look up with her sweet
smile, and then turn absently to her work again.

"There is then to be no food to-day?" said Marthe
at last, her voice calmly sarcastic.

Ange finished counting the drops she was transferring
from one mysterious vessel to another.

"Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—what was that
you said, chérie?"

"Nothing, my dear.  Angels, of course, are not
dependent on food, and Jacques is too far away to
prosecute us if we starve his wife."

"Oh, tres chère, is it so late?  Why did you not
say?  And after such a night, too—my poor dearest.
See, I fly.  Oh, I am vexed, and to-day too, when I
told Jeanne I would make the omelette."

Marthe's eyebrows went up, and Ange turned in
smiling distress to Aline.

"She will be so cross, our old Jeanne!  She loves
punctuality, and she adores making omelettes; but then,
see you, she has no gift for making an omelette—it is
just sheer waste of my good eggs—so to-day I said I
would do it myself, in your honour."

"And mine," observed Marthe, with a click of the
needles.  "Jeanne's omelettes I will not eat."

"Oh, tres chère, be careful.  She has such ears, she
heard what you said about the last one, and she was
so angry.  Aline must come with me now, or I dare
not face her."

They went down together and into the immaculate
kitchen, where Jeanne, busily compounding a pie,
turned a little cross, sallow face upon them, and rose,
grumbling audibly, to fetch eggs and the pan.

"That good Jeanne," said Ange in an undertone,
"she has all the virtues except a good temper.  Marthe
says she is like food without salt—all very good and
wholesome, but so nasty; but she is really attached to
us and after twenty years thinks she has a right to her
temper."

Here, the returning Jeanne banged down a dish, and
clattered with a small pile of spoons and forks.

Ange Desaix broke an egg delicately, and watched
the white drip from the splintered shell.

"Things are beautiful, are they not, little niece?
Just see this gold and white, and the speckled shell of
this one, and the pink glow shining here.  One could
swear one saw the life brooding within, and here I
break it, and its little embryo miracle, in order to
please a taste which Jeanne considers the direct
temptation of some imp who delights to plague her."

She laughed softly, and putting the egg-shells on one
side, began to chop up a little bunch of herbs.

"An omelette is very much like a life, I think," she
said after a moment.  "No two are alike, though all
are made with eggs.  One puts in too many herbs, and
the dish is bitter; another too few, and it is tasteless.
Or we are impatient, and snatch at life in the raw; or
idle, and burn our mixture.  It is only one here
and there who gets both matter and circumstance right."

Jeanne was hovering like an angry bird, and as
Mlle Desaix' voice became more dreamy, and her eyes
looked farther and farther away into space, she twitched
out a small, vicious claw of a hand, and stealthily drew
away the bowl that held the eggs.

"One must just make the most of what one has,"
Ange was saying.  Was she thinking of that sudden
blush and pallor of a few hours back, or of her sister's
words the night before?

"If one's lot is tasteless, one must flavour it with
cheerfulness; and if it is bitter, drink clear water after
it, and forget."

Aline shivered a little, and then, in spite of herself,
she smiled.  Jeanne had her pan on the fire, and a
sudden raw smell of burning rose up, almost palpably.
The mistress of the house came back from her dreams
with a start, looked wildly round, and missed her eggs,
her herbs, her every ingredient.  "Jeanne! but truly,
Jeanne!" she cried hotly; and as she spoke the little
figure at the fire whisked round and precipitated a
burnt, sodden substance on to the waiting dish.

"Ma'mselle is served," she said snappishly, but there
was a glint of triumph in her eye.

"No, Jeanne, it is too much," said Ange, flushing;
whereat Jeanne merely picked up the dish and observed:

"If Ma'mselle will proceed into the other room, I
will serve the dejeuner.  Ma'mselle has perhaps not
remarked that it grows late."

After which speech Mlle Desaix walked out of the
room with a fine dignity, and the smell of the burnt
omelette followed her.

Then began a time of household peace and quiet
healing, in which at first Aline rested happily.  In
this small backwater, life went on very uneventfully,—birth
and death in the village being the only happenings
of note,—the state of Jeanne's temper the most pressing
anxiety, since Mlle Marthe's suffering condition was a
thing of such long standing as to be accepted as a
matter of course, even by her devoted sister.

Of France beyond the hills—of Paris, only thirty
miles away—they heard very little.  The news of the
Queen's trial and death did penetrate, and fell into the
quiet like a stone into a sleeping pond.  All the village
rippled with it—broke into waves of discussion, splashes
of lamentation, froth of approval, and then settled again
into its wonted placidity.

Aline felt a pang of awakening.  Whilst she was
dreaming here amongst the peace of herby scents and
the drowse of harvesting bees, tragedy still moved on
Fate's highways, and she felt sudden terror and the sting
of a sharp self-reproach.  She shrank from Mlle Ange's
kind eyes of pity, touched—just touched—with an
unfaltering faith in the necessity for the appalling
judgment.  The misty hazel eyes wept bitterly, but the will
behind them bowed loyally to the decrees of the
Revolution.

"There 's no great cause without its victim, no new
faith without bloodshed," she said to Marthe, with a
kindling glance.

"I said nothing, my dear," was the dry reply.

Ange paced the room, brushing away hot tears.

"It is for the future, for the new generations, that
we make these sacrifices, these terrible sacrifices," she
cried.

"Oh, my dear!" said Marthe quickly, and then added
with a shrug: "For me, I never felt any vocation for
reforming the world; and if I were you, my Angel, I
would let it alone.  The devil has too much to do with
things in general, that is my opinion."

"There is nothing I can do," said Ange, at her saddest.

"Thank Heaven for that!" observed her sister piously.
"But I will tell you one thing—you need not talk of
noble sacrifices and such-like toys in front of Jacques's
wife."

"I would not hurt her," said Ange; "but, chérie, she
is a Republican's wife—she must know his views, his
aims.  Why, he voted for the King's death!"

"Just so," nodded Marthe: "he voted for the King's
death.  I should keep a still tongue, if I were you."

"You still think——?"

"Think?" with scorn.  "I am sure."

A few days later there was a letter from Dangeau,
just a few lines.  He was well.  Lyons still held out,
but they hoped that any day might end the siege.  He
begged to be commended to his aunts.  Aline read the
letter aloud, in a faltering voice, then laid it in her lap,
and sat staring at it with eyes that suddenly filled, and
saw the letters now blurred, now unnaturally black and
large.  Mlle Ange went out of the room, leaving her
alone under Marthe's intent regard; but for once she was
too absorbed to heed it, and sat there looking into her
lap and twisting her wedding-ring round and round.
Marthe's voice broke crisply in upon her thoughts.

"So he married you with his mother's ring?"

She started, covering it quickly with her other hand.

"Is it?  No, I didn't know," she murmured confusedly.
Then, with an effort at defence: "How do you
know, Mademoiselle Marthe?"

"How does one know anything, child?  By using
one's eyes, and putting two and two together.  Sometimes
they make four, and sometimes they don't, but it 's
worth trying.  The ring is plainly old, and my sister
wore just such another; and after her death Jacques wore
it too, on his little finger.  He adored his mother."

The scene of her wedding flashed before Aline.  At
the time she had not seemed to be aware of anything,
but now she distinctly saw the priest's hand stretched
out for the ring, and Dangeau's little pause of hesitation
before he took it off and gave it.

Marthe's brows were drawn together.

"Now, did he give it her for love, or because there
was need for haste?" she was thinking, and decided:
"No, not for love, or he would have told her it was his
mother's."  And aloud she said calmly: "You see, you
were married in such a hurry that there was no time to
get a new one."

Aline looked up and spoke on impulse.

"What did he tell you about our marriage?" she asked.

"My dear, what was there to tell?  He wrote a few
lines—he does not love writing letters, it appears—he
had married a young girl.  Her name was Marie
Aline Roche, and he commended her to our protection."

"Was that all?"

"Certainly."

"Then do you think I had better tell you more?"
said Aline unsteadily.

Marthe looked at her with a certain pity in her
glance.

"You did not learn prudence in an easy school," she
said slowly, and then added: "No, better not; and
besides, there 's not much need—it's all plain enough to
any one who has eyes."

Dangeau's letter of about this date to Danton contained
a little more information than that he sent his wife.

"The scoundrels have thrown off the mask at last,"
he wrote in a vigorous hand, which showed anger.
"Yesterday Précy fought under the fleur-de-lys.  Well,
better an open enemy, an avowed Royalist, than a
Girondist aping of Republican principles, and treachery
under the surface.  France may now guess at what she
has been saved by the fall of the Gironde.  They hope
for reinforcements here.  Our latest advices are that
Sardinia will not move.  As to Autichamp, he promises
help, and instigates plots from a judicious distance;
but he and his master, Artois, feel safer on any
soil but that of France, and I gather that he will
not leave Switzerland at present.  Losses on both
sides are considerable.  To give the devil his due,
Précy has the courage of ten, and we never know
when he will be at our throats.  Very brilliant work,
those sallies of his.  I wish we had half a dozen like him."

On the ninth of October Lyons fell, and the fiat of the
Republic went forth.  "Lyons has no longer a name
among cities.  Down with her to the dust from which
she rose, and on the bloodstained site let build a pillar
bearing these warning words: 'Lyons rebelled against
the Republic: Lyons is no more.'"

Forthwith terror was let loose, and the town ran
blood, till the shriek of its torment went up night and
day unceasingly, and things were done which may not
be written.

At this time Dangeau's letters ceased, and it was not
until Christmas that news of him came again to Rancy.
Then he wrote shortly, saying he had been wounded on
the last day of the siege, and had lain ill for weeks,
but was now recovered, and had received orders to
join Dugommier, the Victor of Toulon, on his march
against Spain.  The letter was short enough, but
something of the writer's longing to be up and away
from reeking Lyons was discernible in the stiff, curt
sentences.

In truth the tide of disgust rose high about him, and
raise what barriers he would, it threatened to break in
upon his convictions and drown them.  News from Paris
was worse and worse.  The Queen's trial sickened, the
Feast of Reason revolted him.

Down with tyrants, but for liberty's sake with decency!
Away with superstition and all the network of priests'
intrigues; but, in the outraged name of reason, no more
of these drunken orgies, these feasts which defied public
morality, whilst a light woman postured half naked on
the altar where his mother had worshipped.  This
nauseated him, and drew from his pen an imprudently
indignant letter, which Danton frowned over and
consigned to the flames.  He wrote back, however, scarcely
less emphatically, though he recommended prudence
and a still tongue.

"Mad times these, my friend, but decency I will have,
though all Paris runs raving.  It's a fool business, but
you 'd best not say so.  Take my advice and hold your
tongue, though I 've not held mine."

Dangeau made haste to be gone from blood-drenched
Lyons, and to wipe out his recollections of her
punishment in the success which from the first attended
Dugommier's arms.

Spain receded to the Pyrenees; and over the passes
in wild wet weather, stung by the cold, and tormented
by a wind that cut like a sword of ice, the French army
followed.

Here, heroism was the order of the day.  If in
Paris, where Terror stalked, men were less than men
and worse than brutes, because possessed by some
devil soul, damned, and dancing, here they were
more than men, animated by a superhuman courage
and persistence.  Yet, terrible puzzle of human life,
the men were of the same breed, the same stuff, the
same kin.

Antoine, shouting lewd songs about a desecrated altar,
or watching with red, cruel eyes the death-agony of
innocent women and young boys, was own brother to
Jean, whose straw-shod feet carried his brave, starving
body over the blood-stained Pyrenean passes, and who
shared his last crust cheerfully with an unprovided
comrade.  One mother bore and nursed them both, and
both were the spiritual children of that great Revolution
who bore twin sons to France—Licence and Liberty.
Nothing gives one so vivid a picture of France under
the Terror as the realisation that to find relief from the
prevailing horror and inhumanity one must turn to the
battlefields.

The army fought with an empty stomach, bare back,
and bleeding feet, and Dangeau found enough work to
his hand to occupy the energies of ten men.  The
commissariat was disgraceful, supplies scant, and the men
lacking of every necessary.

Having made inquiries, he turned back to France, and
ranged the South like a flame, gathering stores,
ammunition, arms, shoes—everything, in fact, of which
that famished but indomitable army stood in such dire
need.  Summary enough the methods of those days,
and Dangeau's way was as short a one as most, and
more successful than many.

He would ride into a town, establish himself at the
inn, and send for the Mayor, who, according as his
nature were bold or timid, came blustering or trembling.
France had no king, but the tricoloured feathers on her
Commissioner's hat were a sign of power quite as
autocratic as the obsolete fleur-de-lys.

Dangeau sat at a table spread with papers, wrote on
for a space, and then—

"Citizen Mayor, I require, on behalf of the National
Army, five hundred (or it might be a thousand) pairs of
boots, so many beds, such and such provisions."

"But, Citizen Commissioner, we have them not."

Dangeau consulted a notebook.

"I can give you twenty-four hours to produce them,
not more."

"But, Citizen, these are impossibilities.  We cannot
produce what we have not got."

"And neither can our armies save your throats from
being cut if they are unprovided.  Twenty-four hours,
Citizen Mayor."

According to his nature, the Mayor swore or cringed.

"It is impossible."

Dangeau drew out a list.  The principal towns of the
South figured on it legibly.  Setting a thick mark against
one name, he fixed his eyes upon the man before him.

"Have you considered, Citizen," he said sternly, "that
what is grudged to France will be taken by Spain?
Also, it were wiser to yield to my demands than to
those of such an embassy as the Republic sent to Lyons.
My report goes in to-night."

"Your report?"

"Non-compliance with requisitions is to be reported
to the Convention without delay.  I have my orders,
and you, Citizen Mayor, have yours."

"But, Citizen, where am I to get the things?"

Dangeau shrugged his shoulders.

"Is it my business?  But I see you wear an excellent
pair of shoes, I see well-shod citizens in your streets—you
neither starve nor lie on the ground.  Our soldiers
do both.  If any must go without, let it be the idle.
Twenty-four hours, Citizen Mayor."

And in twenty-four hours boots, beds, and provisions
were forthcoming.  Lyons had not been rased for nothing,
and with the smell of her burning yet upon the air, the
shriek of her victims still in the wintry wind, no town
had the courage to refuse what was asked for.  Protestingly
they gave; the army was provided, and Dangeau,
shutting his ears to Paris and her madness, pressed
forward with it into Spain.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`RETURN OF TWO FUGITIVES`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium

   RETURN OF TWO FUGITIVES

.. vspace:: 2

"Aline, dear child!"

"Yes, dear aunt."

"I do not think I will leave Marthe to-day, the
pain is so bad; but I do not like to disappoint old Mère
Leroux.  No one's hens are laying but mine, and I
promised her an egg for her fête day.  She is old, and
old people are like children, and very little pleases or
makes them unhappy."

Aline folded her work.

"Do you mean you would like me to go?  But of
course, dear aunt."

"If you will, my child.  Take your warm cloak, and
be back before sundown; and—Aline——"

"Yes," said Aline at the door.

"If you see Mathieu Leroux, stop and bid him
'Good-day.'  Just say a word or two."

"I do not like Mathieu Leroux," observed Aline, with
the old lift of the head.

Mlle Ange flushed a little.

"He has a good heart, I 'm sure he has a good heart,
but he is suspicious by nature.  Lately Madelon has let
fall a hint or two.  It does not do, my child, to let
people think one is proud, or—or—in any way different."

Aline's eyes were a little startled.

"What, what do you mean?" she asked.

"Child, need you ask me that?"

"Oh!" she said quickly.  "What did Madelon say?"

"Very little.  You know she is afraid of her father,
and so is Jean Jacques.  It was to Marthe she spoke,
and Marthe says Mathieu Leroux is a dangerous man;
but then you know Marthe's way.  Only, if I were you,
I should bid him 'Good-day,' and say a friendly word
or two as you pass."

As Aline walked down to the village at a pace suited
to the sharpness of the February day, Mlle Ange's words
kept ringing in her head.  Had Mlle Marthe warned
her far more emphatically, it would have made a slighter
impression; but when Ange, who saw good in all, was
aware of impending trouble, it seemed to Aline that
the prospect was threatening indeed.  All at once the
pleasant monotony of her life at Rancy appeared to be
at an end, and she looked into a cloudy and uncertain
future, full of the perils from which she had had so short
a respite.

When she came to the inn door and found it filled by
the stout form of Mathieu Leroux she did her best to
smile in neighbourly fashion; but her eyes sank before
his, and her voice sounded forced as she murmured,
"Bonjour, Citizen."

Leroux' black eyes looked over his heavy red cheeks
at her.  They were full of a desire to discover something
discreditable about this stranger who had dropped
into their little village, and who, though a patriot's wife,
displayed none of the signs by which he, Leroux,
estimated patriotism.

"Bonjour," he returned, without removing his pipe.

Aline struggled with her annoyance.

"How is your mother to-day?" she inquired.  "My
aunt has sent her a new-laid egg.  May I go in?"

"Eh, she 's well enough," he grumbled.  "There is too
much fuss made over her.  She 'll live this twenty years,
and never do another stroke of work.  That's my luck.
A strong, economical, handy wife must needs die, whilst
an old woman, who, you 'd think, would be glad enough
to rest in her grave, hangs on and on.  Oh, yes, go in,
go in; she 'll be glad enough to have some one to complain to."

Aline slipped past him, frightened.  He had evidently
been drinking, and she knew from Madelon that he was
liable to sudden outbursts of passion when this was the case.

In a small back room she found old Mère Leroux
crouched by the fire, groaning a little as she rocked
herself to and fro.  When she saw that Aline was alone,
she gave a little cry of disappointment.

"And Mlle Ange?" she cried in her cracked old voice.

"My aunt Marthe is bad to-day; she could not leave
her," explained Aline.

"Oh, poor Ma'mselle Marthe—and I remember her
straight and strong and handsome; not a beauty like
Ma'mselle Ange, but well enough, well enough.  Then
she falls down a bank with a great stone on top of her,
and there she is, no better than an old woman like me,
who has had her life, and whom no one cares for any
more."

"Oh, Mère Leroux, you should n't say that!"

"It's true, my dear, true enough.  Mathieu is a bad
son, a bad son.  Some day he 'll turn me out, and I
shall go to Madelon.  She 's a good girl, Madelon; but
when a girl has got a husband, what does she care for
an old grandmother?  Now Charles was a good son.  Yes,
if Charles had lived—but then it is always the best who go."

"You had another son, then?" said Aline, bringing
a wooden stool to the old woman's side.

"Yes, my son Charles.  Ah, a fine lad that, and
handsome.  He was M. Réné's body servant, and you
should have seen him in his livery—a fine, straight man,
handsomer than M. Réné.  Ah, well, he fretted after his
master, and then he took a fever and died of it, and
Mathieu has never been a good son to me."

"M. Réné died?" asked Aline quickly, for the old
woman had begun to cry.

Mère Leroux dried her eyes.

"Ah, yes; there 's no one who knows more about that
than I.  He was in Paris, and as he came out of M. le
duc de Noailles's Hôtel, he met M. de Brézé, and M. de
Brézé said to him, 'Well, Réné, we have been hearing
of you,' and M. Réné said, 'How so?'  'Why,' says
M. de Brézé (my son Charles was with M. Réné, and
he heard it all), 'Why,' says M. de Brézé, 'I hear you
have found a guardian angel of quite surpassing beauty.
May I not be presented to her?'  Then, Charles said,
M. Réné looked straight at him and answered, 'When I
bring Mme Réné de Montenay to Paris, I will present
you.'  M. de Brézé shrugged his shoulders, and slapped
M. Réné on the arm.  'Oho,' said he, 'you are very sly,
my friend.  I was not talking of your marriage, but of
your mistress.'

"Then M. Réné put his hand on his sword, and said,
still very quietly, 'You have been misinformed; it is a
question of my marriage.'  Charles said that M. de
Brézé was flushed with wine, or he would not have
laughed as he did then.  Well, well, well, it's a great
many years ago, but it was a pity, a sad pity.  M. de
Brézé was the better swordsman, and he ran M. Réné
through the body."

"And he died?" said Aline.

"Not then; no, not then.  It would have been better
like that—yes, much better."

"Oh, what happened?"

"Charles heard it all.  The surgeon attended to the
wound, and said that with care it would do well, only
there must be perfect quiet, perfect rest.  With his
own ears he heard that said, and the old Marquise went
straight from the surgeon to M. Réné's bedside, and
sat down, and took his hand.  Charles was in the
next room, but the door was ajar, and he could hear
and see.

"'Réné, my son,' she said, 'I hear your duel was
about Ange Desaix.' M. Réné said, 'Yes, ma mere.'  Then
she said very scornfully, 'I have undoubtedly
been misinformed, for I was told that you fought
because—but no, it is too absurd.'

"M. Réné moved his hand.  He was all strapped up,
but his hand could move, and he jerked it, thus, to stop
his mother; and she stopped and looked at him.  Then
he said, 'I fought M. de Brézé because he spoke
disrespectfully of my future wife.'  Yes, just like that he
said it; and what it must have been to Madame to hear
it, Lucifer alone knows, for her pride was like his.
There was a long silence, and they looked hard at each
other, and then Madame said, 'No!'—only that, but
Charles said her face was dreadful, and M. Réné said
'Yes!' almost in a whisper, for he was weak, and then
again there was silence.  After a long time Madame
got up and went out of the room, and M. Réné gave
a long sigh, and called Charles, and asked for something
to drink.  Next day Madame came back.  She did not
sit down this time, but stood and stared at M. Réné.
Big black eyes she had then, and her face all white, as
white as his.  'Réné,' she said, 'are you still mad?'
and M. Réné smiled and said, 'I am not mad at all.'  She
put her hand on his forehead.  'You would really
do this thing?' she said.  'Lower our name, take as
wife what you might have for the asking as mistress?'  M. Réné
turned in bed at that, and between pain and
anger his voice sounded strong and loud.  'Whilst I
am alive, there 's no man living shall say that,' he cried.
'On my soul I swear I shall marry her, and on my
soul I swear she is fit to be a king's wife.'

"Madame took her hand away, and looked at it
for a moment.  Afterwards, when Charles told me, I
thought, did she wonder if she should see blood on
it?  And then without another word she went out
of the room, and gave orders that her carriages were
to be got ready, for she was taking M. Réné to
Rancy."

"Oh, no!" said Aline.

"Yes, my dear, yes; and she did it too, and he died
of the journey—died calling for Mlle Ange."

"Oh, did she come?"

"Charles fetched her, and for that Madame never
forgave him."

"Oh, how dreadful!"

"Yes, yes, it is sad; but it would have been a terrible
mésalliance.  A Montenay and his steward's daughter!
No, no, it would not have done; one does not do such
things."

Aline got up abruptly.

"Oh, I must go," she said.  "I promised I would not
be long.  See, here is the egg."

"You are in such a hurry," mumbled the old woman,
confused.  She was still in the past, and the sudden
change of subject bewildered her.

"I will come again," said Aline gently.

When she was clear of the inn she walked very fast
for a few moments, and then stopped.  She did not
want to go home at once—the story she had just heard
had taken possession of her, and she wanted to be alone
to adjust her thoughts, to grow accustomed to kind
placid Mlle Ange as the central figure of such a tragedy.
After a moment's pause she took the path that led to
the château, but stopped short at the high iron gates.
Beyond them the avenue looked black and eerie.  Her
desire to go farther left her, and she leaned against the
gates, taking breath after the climb.

The early dusk was settling fast upon the bare woods,
and the hollow where the village lay below was already
dark and flecked with a light or two.  Above, a
little yellowish glow lurked behind the low, sullen
clouds.

It was very still, and Aline could hear the drip, drip
of the moisture which last night had coated all the
trees with white, and which to-night would surely freeze
again.  It was turning very cold; she would not wait.
It was foolish to have come, more than foolish to let an
old woman's words sting her so sharply—"One does not
do such things."  Was it her fancy that the dim eyes
had been turned curiously upon her for a moment just
then?  Yes, of course, it was only fancy, for what could
Mère Leroux know or suspect?  She drew her cloak
closer, and was about to turn away when a sound startled
her.  Close by the gate a stick cracked as if it had been
trodden on, and there was a faint brushing sound as of
a dress trailing against the bark of a tree.  Aline peered
into the shadows with a beating heart, and thought she
saw some one move.  Frightened and unnerved, she
caught at the scroll-work of the gate and stared
open-eyed, unable to stir; and again something rustled and
moved within.  This time it was plainly a woman's
shape that flitted from one tree to the next—a woman
who hid a moment, then leaned and looked, and at last
came lightly down the avenue to the gate.  Here the
last of the light fell on Marguerite de Matigny's face,
showing it very white and hollow-eyed.  Aline's heart
stood still.  Could this be flesh and blood?  Marguerite
here?  Not in the flesh, then.

"Marguerite," she breathed.

Marguerite's hand came through the wrought-work
and caught at her.  It was cold, but human, and Aline
recovered herself with a gasp.

"Marguerite, you?"

"And Aline, you?  I looked, and looked, and thought
't was you, and at last I thought, well, I 'll risk it.  Oh,
my dear!"

"But I don't understand.  Oh, Marguerite, I thought
you were a ghost."

"And wondered why I should come here?  Well,
I 've some right to, for my mother was a Montenay.
Did you not know it?"

"No.  But what brings you here, since you are not a
ghost, but your very own self?"

"Tiens, Aline, I have wished myself any one or
anything but myself this last fortnight!  You must know
that when I was set free—and oh, ma chérie, I heard it
was your husband who saved me, and of course that
means you——"

"Not me," said Aline quickly.  "He did it.  Who
told you?"

"The Abbé Loisel.  He knows everything—too much,
I think!  I don't like him, which is ungrateful, since he
got me out of Paris."

"Did he?  Where did you go then?"

"Why, to Switzerland, to Bâle, where I joined my
father; and then, then—oh, Aline, do you know I am
betrothed?"

"My dear, and you are happy?"

Marguerite screwed up her face in an unavailing
attempt to keep grave, but after a moment burst out
laughing.

"Why, Aline, he is so droll, and a countryman of
your own.  Indeed, I believe he is a cousin, for his name
is Desmond."

"And you like him?"

"Oh, I adore him," said Mlle Marguerite calmly.
"Aline, if you could see him!  His hair—well, it's
rather red; and he has freckles just like the dear little
frogs we used to find by the ponds, Jean and I, when we
were children; and his eyes are green and droll—oh, but
to make you die of laughing——"

"He is not handsome, then?" said Aline, laughing too.

"Oh no, ugly—but most adorably ugly, and tall, and
broad; and oh, Aline, he is nice, and he says that in
Ireland I may love him as much as I please, and no one
will think it a breach of decorum."

"Marguerite, you are just the same, you funny child!"

"Well, why not—it's not so long since we saw each
other, is it?  Only a few months."

"I feel as if it were centuries," said Aline, pressing
her hands together.

"Ah, that's because you are married.  Ciel! that was
a sensation, your marriage.  They talked—yes, they
talked to split your ears.  The things they said——"

"And you?"

"You are my friend," said Mlle de Matigny
with decision.  "But I must go on with my story.
Well, I was at Bâle and betrothed, and then my
father and Monsieur my fiancé set off to join
the Princes, leaving me with Mme de Montenay,
my great-aunt, who is ever so old, and quite, quite mad!"

"Oh, Marguerite!"

"Yes, but she is.  Imagine being safe in Bâle, and
then coming back here, all across France, just because
she could not die anywhere but at the Château de
Montenay in Rancy-les-Bois."

"She has come back?"

"Should I be here otherwise?" demanded Marguerite
pathetically.  "And the journey!—What I endured!—for
I saw guillotines round every corner, and suspicious
patriots on every doorstep.  It is a miracle that we are
here; and now that we have come, it is all very well
for Madame my aunt, who has come here to die, and
requires no food to accomplish that end; but for me, I
do not fancy starving, and we have nothing to eat in
the house."

"Oh, my poor dear!  What made you come?"

"Could I let her come alone?  She is too old and
too weak; but I ought to have locked the door and kept
the key—only, old as she is, she can still make every one
do as she wants."

"You are not alone?"

"Jean and Louise, her old servants, started with us;
but Jean got himself arrested.  Poor Jean, he could not
pretend well enough."

"And Louise?"

"Oh, Louise is there, but she is nearly as old as
Madame."

"You must have food," said Aline decidedly.  "I
will bring you some."

"Oh, you angel!" exclaimed Marguerite, kissing her
through the bars.  "When you came I was standing
here trying to screw up my courage to go down to the
inn and ask for some."

"Oh, not the inn," said Aline quickly; "that's the
last place to go.  I 'm afraid there 's danger everywhere,
but I 'll do what I can.  Go back to the château, and
I 'll come as soon as possible."

"Yes, as soon as possible, please, for I am hungry
enough to eat you, my dear.  See, have n't I got
thin—yes, and pale too?  I assure you that I have a most
interesting air."

"Does M. my cousin find pallor interesting?"
inquired Aline teasingly.

"No, my dear; he has a bourgeois's taste for colour.
He compared me once to a carnation, but I punished
him well for that.  I stole the vinegar, and drank
enough to make me feel shockingly ill.  Then I powdered
my cheeks, and then—then I talked all the evening
to M. de Maillé!"

"And my cousin, M. le Chevalier, what did he do?"

Marguerite gave an irrepressible giggle.

"He went away, and I was just beginning to feel that
perhaps he had been punished enough, when back he
came, very easy and smiling, with a sweet large and
beautiful bouquet of white carnations, and with an
elegant bow he begged me to accept them, since white
was my preference, though for his part he preferred the
beauteous red that blushed like happy love!"

"And then?"

Marguerite's voice became very demure.

"Poor grandmamma used to say life was compromise,
so I compromised; next morning I did not drink vinegar,
and I wore a blush pink bud in my hair.  M. le Chevalier
was pleased to admire it extravagantly."

Aline ran off laughing, but she was grave enough
before she had gone very far, for certainly the situation
was not an easy one.  She racked her brains for a
plan, but could find none; and when she came in, Mlle
Marthe's quick eyes at once discerned that something
was wrong.

"What is it, child?" she said hastily.  "Was Mathieu
rude?"

"My dear, how late you are," said Mlle Ange,
looking up from her needlework.

"Not Mathieu?" continued Marthe.  "What has
happened, Aline?  You have not bad news?  It is not
Jacques?" and her lips grew paler.

"No, no, ma tante."

"What is it, then?  Speak, or—or—why, you have
been to the château!" she said abruptly, as Aline came
into the lamplight.

"Why, Marthe, what makes you say that?" said
Ange, in a startled voice.

"The rust on her cloak—see, it is all stained.  She
has been leaning against the iron gates.  What took
you there, and what has alarmed you?"

"I—I saw——"

"A ghost?" inquired Marthe with sharp sarcasm.

Ange rose up, trembling.

"Oh, she has come back!  I know it, I have felt it!
She has come back," she cried.

"Ange, don't be a fool," said Marthe, but her eyes
were anxious.

"Speak then, Aline, and tell us what you saw."

"It is true, she has come back," said Aline, looking
away from Mlle Ange, who put her hands before her
eyes with a little cry and stood so a full minute, whilst
Marthe gave a harsh laugh, and then bit her lip as if
in pain.

"Come back to die?" Ange said at last, very low.
"Alone?"—and she turned on Aline.

"No, a niece is with her.  It was she whom I saw.  I
knew her in Paris—in prison; and, ma tante, they have
no food in the house, and I said I would take them some."

"No food goes from this house to that," said Marthe
loudly, but Ange caught her hand.

"Oh, we can't let them starve."

"And why not, Angel, why not?  The old devil!
She has done enough mischief in the world, and now
that her time has come, let her go.  Does she expect
us, us, to weep for her?"

"No, no; but I can't let her starve—you know I can't."

Marthe laughed again.

"No, perhaps not, but I could, and I would."  She
paused.  "So you 'd heap coals of fire—feed her, save
her, eh, Angel?"

"Oh, Marthe, don't!  For the love of God, don't
speak to me like that—when you know—when you know!"

Marthe pulled her down with an impulsive gesture
that drew a groan from her.

"Ah, Ange," she said in a queer, broken voice; and
Ange kissed her passionately and ran out of the room.

There was a long, heavy pause.  Then Marthe said:

"So you've heard the story?  Who told you?"

"Mère Leroux, to-night."

"And a very suitable occasion.  Who says life is not
dramatic?  So Mère Leroux told you, and you went
up to the château to see if it was haunted, and it was.
Ciel, if those stones could speak!  But there 's enough
without that—quite enough."

She was silent again, and after awhile Mlle Ange
came back, wrapped in a thick cloak and carrying a
basket.

Aline started forward.

"Ma tante, I may come too?  It is so dark."

"And the dark is full of ghosts?" said Ange Desaix,
under her breath.  "Well, then, child, you may come.
Indeed, the basket is heavy, and I shall be glad of your
help."

Outside, the night had settled heavily, and without
the small lantern which Mlle Ange produced from under
her cloak, it would have been impossible to see the path.
A little breeze had risen and seemed to follow them,
moaning among the leafless boughs, and rustling the
dead leaves below.  They walked in silence, each
with a hand on the heavy basket.  It was very cold,
and yet oppressive, as if snow were about to fall
or a storm to break.  Mlle Ange led the way up a
bridle-path, and when the grey pile of the château
loomed before them she turned sharply to the left, and
Aline felt her hand taken.  "This way," whispered
Ange; and they stumbled up a broken step or two, and
passed through a long, shattered window.  "This way,"
said Ange again.  "Mon Dieu, how long since I came
here!  Ah, mon Dieu!"

The empty room echoed to their steps and to that
low-voiced exclamation, and the lantern light fell
waveringly upon the shadows, driving them into the
corners, where they crowded like ghosts out of that past
of which the room seemed full.

It was a small room, and had been exquisite.  Here
and there a moulded cupid still smiled its dimpled
smile, and clutched with plump, engaging fingers at the
falling garland of white, heavy-bloomed roses which
served it for girdle and plaything.  In one corner a
tattered rag of brocade still showed that the hangings
had been green.  Ange looked round mournfully.

"It was Madame's boudoir," she said slowly, with
pauses between the sentences.  "Madame sat here,
by the window, because she liked to look out at the
terrace, and the garden her Italian mother had made.
Madame was beautiful then—like a picture, though
her hair was too white to need powder.  She had little
hands, soft like a child's hands; but her eyes looked
through you, and at once you thought of all the bad
things you had ever done or thought.  It was worse
than confession, for there was no absolution afterwards."
She paused and moved a step or two.

"I sat here.  The hours I have read to her, or worked
whilst she was busy with her letters!"

"You!" said Aline, surprised.

"Yes, I, her godchild, and a pet until—come then,
child, until I forgot I was on the same footing as cat or
dog, petted for their looks, and presumed to find a
common humanity in myself and her.  Ah, Marraine,
it was you who made me a Republican.  Oh, my child,
pride is an evil god to serve!  Don't sacrifice your life
to him as mine was sacrificed."

She crossed hastily to the door as she spoke, and they
came through a corridor to the great stairs, where the
darkness seemed to lie in solid blocks, and the faint
lantern light showed just one narrow path on which to
set their feet.  And on that path the dust lay thick;
here drifted into mounds, and there spread desert-smooth
along the broad, shallow steps, eloquent of
desolation indescribable.  But on the centre of the grey
smoothness was a footmark—very small and lonely-looking.
It seemed to make the gloom more eerie, the
stillness more terrible, and the two women kept close
together as they went up the stair.

At the top another corridor, and then a door in front
of which Ange hesitated long.  Twice she put out her
hand, and twice drew back, until at last it was Aline
who lifted the latch and drew her through the doorway.
Darkness and silence.

Across that room, and to another.  Darkness and
silence still.  At the third door Ange came forward
again.

"It is past," she said, half to herself, and went in
before Aline.

Whilst the west was all in darkness, this long east
room fronted the rising moon, and the shimmer of it
lay full across the chamber, making it light as day.
Here the dust had been lately disturbed, for it hung
like a mist in the air, and its shining particles floated all
a-glitter in the broad wash of silver.  Full in the
moonlight stood a great canopied bed, its crimson hangings
all wrenched away, and trailing to the dusty floor, where
they lay like some ineffaceable stain of rusting blood.
On the dark hearth a handful of sticks burned to a dull
red ash, and between fire and moon there was a chair.
It stood in to the hearth, as if for warmth, but aslant
so that the moon shaft lay across it.

Ange set down the lantern and took a quick step
forward, crying, "Madame!"  Something stirred in the
tattered chair, something grey amongst the grey of the
shadows.  It was like the movement of the roused spider,
for here was the web, all dust and moonshine, and here,
secret and fierce, grey and elusive, lurked the weaver.
The shape in the chair leaned forward, and the oldest
woman's face she had ever seen looked at Aline across
the moted moonlight.  The face was all grey; the bony
ridge above the deep eye-pits, the wrinkled skin that lay
beneath, the shrivelled, discoloured lips—plainly this
was a woman not only old, but dying.  Then the lids
lifted, and Aline could have screamed, for the movement
showed eyes as smoulderingly bright as the sudden
sparks which fly up from grey ash that should be cold,
but has still a heart of flame if stirred.  They spoke
of the indomitable will which had dragged this old,
frail woman here to die.

Through the silence came a mere thread of a voice—

"Who is it?"

"I am Ange Desaix."

The shrivelled fingers picked at the shrouding shawl.
Aline, watching uneasily, saw the pinched face fall into a
new arrangement of wrinkles.  The mouth opened like
a pit, and from it came an attenuated sound.  With
creeping flesh she realised that this was a
laugh—Madame was laughing.

"Ange Desaix, Ange Desaix,—Réné's Angel.  Oh,
la belle comédie!"

"Madame!" the sound came like a sob, and in a
flash Aline guessed how long it was since any one had
named Réné de Montenay before this woman who had
loved him.  After the silence of nearly forty years it
stabbed her like a sword thrust.

Again that faint sound like the echo of laughter long
dead:

"My compliments, Mlle Desaix.  Will you not be
seated, and let me know to what I owe the pleasure of
this visit?  But you are not alone.  Who is that with
you?  Come here!"

Aline crossed the room obediently.

"Who are you?" said the faint voice again, and the
burning eyes looked searchingly into her face.

Something stirred in Aline.  This old wreck of womanhood
was not only of her order, but of her kin.  Before
she knew it she heard her own voice say:

"I am Aline de Rochambeau."

Ange Desaix gave a great start.  She had guessed,—but
this was certainty, and the shock took her breath.
From the chair a minute, tiny hand was beckoning.

"Rochambeau, Rochambeau.  I know all the
Rochambeau—Réné de Rochambeau was my first cousin,
for I was a Montenay born, you know.  He and his
brother were the talk of the town when I was young.
They married the twin heiresses of old M. de Vivonne,
and every one sang the catch which M. de Coulanges
made—

   |  Fiers et beaux, les Rochambeau;
   |  Fiere et bonnes, les belles Vivonne.'

Whose daughter are you?"

Aline knelt by the chair and kissed the little claw
where a diamond shone from the gold circlet which was
so much too loose.

"Réné de Rochambeau was my grandfather," she said.

"Well, he would have thought you a pretty girl.
Beauty never came amiss to a Rochambeau, and you
have your share.  We are kinsfolk, Mademoiselle,
and in other circumstances, I should have wished—have
wished—" she drew her hand away impatiently and
put it to her head.  "Who said that Ange Desaix was
here?  Why does she come now?  Réné is dead, and
I have no more sons; I am really a little at a loss."

The words which should have sounded pathetic came
in staccato mockery, and Aline sprang up in indignation,
but even as she moved Mlle Ange spoke.

"Let the past alone, Madame," she said slowly.
"Believe, if you can, that I have come to help you.
You are not alone?"

"I have Louise, but she—really, I forget where she
is at present, but she is not cooking, for we have nothing
to cook.  It is as well that I have come here to die, since
for that there are always conveniences.  One dies more
comfortably chez soi.  In fact, unless one had the
honour of dying on the field of battle, there is to my mind
something bourgeois about dying in a strange place.
At least, it has never been our habit.  Now I recollect
when Réné was dying—dear me, how many years ago
it is now?"

"It is thirty-seven years ago," said Ange Desaix in
low muffled tones.

"Thank you, Mademoiselle, you are quite correct.
Well, thirty-seven years ago, you, with that excellent
memory of yours, will recall how I brought my son
Réné here, that he might die at home."

"Yes," said Ange.  "You brought him home that
he might die."

The slight change of words was an accusation, and
there was a moment's silence, broken by an almost
inaudible whisper from Mlle Ange.

"Thirty-seven years.  Oh, mon Dieu!"

The tremulous grey head moved a little, bent forward,
and was propped by a shaking hand, but Madame's
eyes shone unalterably amused.

"Yes, my dear Ange, he died—unmarried; and I had
the consolations of religion, and also of knowing that a
mésalliance is not possible in the grave."

Ange Desaix started forward with a sob.

"And have you never repented, Madame, have you
never repented?  Never thought that you might have
had his children about your knees?  That night, when I
saw him die, I said, 'God will punish,' and are you not
punished?  You have neither son nor grandson; you
are childless as I am childless; you are alone and the
last of your line!"

The sudden fire transfigured her, and she looked like
a prophetess.  Madame de Montenay stared at her and
fell to fidgeting with her shawl.

"I am too old for scenes," she said fretfully.  "Réné
was a fool—a fool.  I never interfered with his
amusements, but marriage—that is not an affair for oneself
alone.  Did he think I should permit?  But it is
enough, he is dead, and I think you forget yourself,
Ange Desaix, when you come to my house and talk to
me in such a strain.  I should like to be alone."

The old imperious note swelled the thin voice; the
old imperious gesture raised the trembling hand.  Even
in her recoil Aline felt a faint thrill of admiration as for
something indomitable, indestructible.

Ange swept through the door.

"Ah!" she said with a long shuddering breath, "ah,
mon Dieu! mon Dieu!"  All her beautiful dreamy
expression was gone.  "Ah! what a coward I am; even
now, even now she frightens me, cows me," and she
leaned panting against the wall, whilst Aline closed the
door.

Out of the darkness Marguerite came trembling.

"Aline, what is it?" she whispered.  "I heard you,
and came as far as the door, and then, Holy Virgin,
is n't she terrible?  She makes me cold like ice, and her
laugh, it 's—oh, one does not know how to bear it!"

Mlle Ange turned, collecting herself.

"Is it Louise?" she asked.

"No, I am Marguerite de Matigny.  Louise is in the
corridor."

"Let us come away from here," said Aline, taking
the lantern, and they hastened through the two dark
rooms, meeting Louise at the farthest door.  She was
a tall, haggard woman, with loose grey hair and restless,
terrified eyes.  Mlle Ange drew her aside, whispering,
and after a moment the fear went out of her face,
leaving a sallow exhaustion in its place.

"It is a miracle," she was saying as Aline and
Marguerite joined them.  "The saints know how we got
here.  I remember nothing, I am too tired; and Madame,—how
she is not dead!  Nothing would hold her, when
the doctor told her she had a mortal complaint.  If you
know Madame, you will know that she laughed.  'Mon
Dieu,' she said to me, 'I have had one mortal
complaint for ten years now, and that is old age, but since
he says I have another, no doubt he is right, and the
two together will kill me.'  Then she said, 'Pack my
mail, Louise, for I do not choose to die here, where no
one has ever heard of the Montenay.'  'But, Mademoiselle,'
I said, and Madame shrugged her shoulders.
'But the Terror,' I said, and indeed, Ma'mselle, I went
on my knees to her, but if you think she cared!  Not
the least in the world, and here we are, and God knows
what comes next!  I am afraid, very much afraid,
Ma'mselle."

"Yes, and so am I," whispered Marguerite, pinching
Aline's arm.  "It is really dreadful here.  La tante
mad, and this old house all ghosts and horrors, and
nothing to eat, it is triste,—yes, I can tell you it is
triste."

"We will come again," said Aline, kissing her, "and
at least there is food here."

"Yes, take the basket, Louise," said Mlle Ange,
"and now we must go."

"Oh, no, don't go," cried Marguerite.  "Stay just a
little—" but Louise broke in——

"No, no, Ma'mselle, let them go.  Madame would
not be pleased.  I thought I heard her call just now."  She
shrugged her shoulders expressively, and Marguerite
released her friend with a little sobbing kiss.

"Come, Aline," said Mlle Ange with dignity, and
they went down the echoing stair in silence.

Neither spoke for a long while.  Then amongst the
deeper shadows of the wood Aline heard a curiously
strained voice say:

"So you are Rochambeau, and noble?"

"Yes."

"Marthe said so from the first; she is always right."

"Yes."

A little pause, and then Ange said passionately:

"What made you give that name?  Are you ashamed
to be called Dangeau?"

"She was so old, and of my kin; I said the name
that she would know.  Oh, I do not know why I said
it," faltered Aline.

"Does he know it, Jacques?"

"Yes, oh yes!"

"He knew before you were married?"

"Yes, always; he has been so good."

"So good, and you his wife, and could deny his name!
I do not understand you, Aline de Rochambeau."

Aline flushed scarlet in the darkness.  Her own
name spoken thus seemed to set a bruise upon her
heart.

"It was not that," she cried: "I do not know why I
said it, but it was not to deny—him."

Her voice sank very low, and something in it made
Ange halt a moment and say:

"Aline, do you love Jacques?"

Aline's hand went to her breast.

"Yes," she said under her breath, and thought the
whole wood echoed with the one soft word.

"And does he know that too?" The questioning
voice had sunk again to gentleness.

"No, no—oh, no."

"Poor child," said Agnes Desaix, and after that they
spoke no more.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BURNING OF THE CHÂTEAU`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium

   BURNING OF THE CHÂTEAU

.. vspace:: 2

Mlle Marthe lay in the dusk frowning and
knitting her brows until they made a straight
dark line over her restless eyes.  A sense of angry
impotence possessed her and found expression in a
continual sharp movement of head and hand; the stabbing
physical pain evoked was sheer relief to the strained
mind.  Two days had now passed since the first
expedition to the château, and every hour of them had
seemed more heavily weighted with impending danger.
Nothing would persuade Mme de Montenay to move,
or Ange to leave her to her fate.  Louise was tearful,
and useless; Marguerite, a lonely child, terrified of the
great shadowed rooms, and clinging eagerly to her
friend;—a complication, in fact, which roused Mlle
Marthe's anger more than all the rest, since even her
resolution recoiled from the abandonment of a young
girl, who had no share in Mme de Montenay's obstinacy.
Marthe fretted, turned a little, groaned, and
bit her lip.

As the door opened she looked up sharply, but it
was only Jeanne, who came to ask her if she should
light the lamp, and got a snappish "No!" for answer.

"It is dark, Ma'mselle," she said.

"I will wait till they come in."

"Eh—it 's queer weather, and a queer time of day
to be out," muttered Jeanne sulkily.

"Madame is young; she needs exercise," said Marthe,
prompted by something in the woman's tone.

"Ah, yes, exercise," said Jeanne in a queer voice,
and she went out, shutting the door sharply.  Mlle
Marthe's thoughts kept tone with the darkening sky.
Her eyes watched the door with an anxious stare.  When
at last Ange and Aline came in snow-sprinkled and warm,
her temper was fretted to a sharp edge, and she spoke
with quick impatience.

"Mon Dieu, how long you have been!  If you must
go, you must, but there is no occasion to stay and stay,
until I am beside myself with wondering what has
happened!"

Ange threw off her wet cloak and bent to kiss her
sister.  "Oh, my dearest, has it been so long?" she
said.  "Why, I thought we were being so quick, and
that you would commend us.  We did not wait at all,
only gave the food to Louise and came straight back.
Has the pain been bad then, my poor darling?  Have
you wanted anything?"

Marthe pushed her away with an angry jerk.

"What I want is a way out of this abominable
situation," she exclaimed.  "If you had any common-sense,
Ange—the slightest instinct of self-preservation—but
no, you will sacrifice all our lives to that wicked
old woman, and then flatter yourself that you have done
something to be proud of.  Come here to die, has she?
Heavens, she 'll outlive us all, and then go happy in the
thought that she has contrived to do a little more
mischief before the end!"

Ange winced, but only said gently:

"Dearest, don't."

"There, Ange, I 've no patience!  I tell you we are
all on the brink of ruin.  Madelon has been here."

"Madelon?  Ah, the dear child.  It is so long since
I have really seen her.  I am sorry to have missed her.
Was she well?"

Mlle Marthe caught her sister's hand and pressed it
until she cried out, "Marthe, you are hurting me!"

"Ange!  Sometimes I could swear at you!  For
Heaven's sake think of yourself for a few moments,
or if that is asking too much, think of Aline, think of me.
Madelon came here because her father sent her!"

"Her father sent her!  Marthe, dearest, don't—that hurts."

"I mean it to.  Yes, her father——"

"But why.  I don't understand."

Aline had been lighting the lamp.  She looked up
now, and the yellow flare showed the trouble in her face.

"Oh, ma tante," she breathed.

"Yes, child.  Ange, wake up; don't you realise?"

"Mathieu suspects?" asked Aline quickly.  "But how?"

"He saw you take the path to the château the other
day.  Saw, or thought he saw, a light in the west wing
last night, and sent Madelon to find out how much we
knew.  A mischief-maker Mathieu, and a bad man,—devil
take him."

"Oh, Marthe, don't.  Madelon,—Madelon is as true
as steel."

"Oh, yes, but mightily afraid of her father.  She sat
here with her round cheeks as white as curds, and cried,
and begged me not to tell her anything;—as if I should
be such a fool."

"Ah, poor Madelon," said Ange, "she must not
distress herself like that, it is so bad for her just now."

Marthe ground her teeth.

"Ange, I won't have it—I won't.  I tell you all
our lives are at stake, and you discuss Madelon's
health."

"My dearest, don't be vexed; indeed, I am trying to
think what can be done."

"Now, Ange, listen to me.  If you will go on with
this mad business, there is only one thing to be done.
I have thought it all out.  They must do with as little
as possible, and you must not go there oftener than
once in four days.  You will go at eleven o'clock at
night when there is no one abroad, and Louise will
meet you half-way and take the basket on.  There
must be no other communication of any sort: you hear
me, Aline?"

"Yes," said Aline, "I think you are quite right."

"That is always a consolation."  Marthe's voice
took a sarcastic tone.  "Now, Ange, do you agree?"

"If you really think——"

"Why, yes, I do.  Ange, I 'm a cross animal, but I
can't see you throw your life away and not say a word.
I 'm a useless cripple enough, but I have the use of my
tongue.  Will you promise?"

"Well—yes."

"That's right.  Now for goodness let's talk about
something else.  If there 's going to be trouble it will
come, and we need n't go over and over it all before
it does come.  Aline, do, for the love of heaven,
remember that I cannot bear the light in my eyes like that.
Put the lamp over here, behind me, and then you can
take a book and read aloud so as to give us all a chance
of composing our minds."

Aline waked late that night.  All the surface calm
in her had been broken up by the events of the last
few days.  The slight sprinkling of snow had ceased,
but there was a high wind abroad, and as it complained
amongst the stripped and creaking woods, it seemed to
voice the yearning that strained the very fibres of her
being.

She stood at midnight and looked out.  Very high
and pale rode the moon, and the driving cloud wrack
swept like shallow, eddying water across the one clear
space of sky in which she queened it.  All below was
dense, dull, cloud mass, darkening to the hill slope,
and the black sighing woodland.  Thoughts drove in
her brain, like the driving cloud.  Sadness of life,
imminence of death, shortness of love.  She had seen
an ugly side of ancestral pride in these two days, and
suddenly she glimpsed a vision of herself grown old
and grey, looking back along the interminable years to
the time when she had sacrificed youth and love.  Then
it would be too late.  Life was irrevocable; but now—now?
She threw open her window and leaned far
out, drawing the strong air into her lungs, whilst the
wind caught her hair and spread it all abroad.  The
spirit of life, of youth, cried to her, and she stretched
her arms wide and mingled her voice with its voice.
"Jacques!" she called under her breath, "Jacques!"
and then as suddenly she drew back trembling and hid
her face in her cold hands.

She did not know how the time passed after that,
but when she looked up again there was a faint glow
in the sky.  She watched it curiously, thinking for a
moment that it was the dawn, and then aware that
morning must still be far away.

A tinge of rose brightened the cloud bank over the
hill, and at its edge the ether showed blue.  Then
quite suddenly a tongue of fire flared above the trees
and sank again.  As the flames rose a second time
Ange Desaix was in the room.

"Aline!  The château!  It is on fire!" she cried.
"Oh, mon Dieu, what shall we do?"

They ran out, wrapped hastily in muffling cloaks, and
as they climbed the hill Ange spoke in gasps.

"They must have seen it in the village before we
did.  All the world will be there.  Oh, that poor
child!  God help us all!"

"Oh, come quickly!" cried Aline, and they took
hands and ran.  The slope once mounted, the path so
dark a few hours back was illuminated.  A red,
unnatural dusk filled the wood, and against it the trees
stretched great black groping arms.  The sky was like
the reflection from some huge furnace, and all the way
the fire roared in the rising wind.

"How could it have happened?  Do you think,—oh,
do you suppose this is what she meant to do?"
Aline asked once, and Ange gave a sort of sob as she
answered:

"Oh, my dear, God knows,—but I 'm afraid so," and
then they pushed on again in silence.

They came out of the bridle-path into the cypress
walk that led to Madame's Italian garden.  At a turn
the flaming building came into view for the first time.
South and east it burned furiously, but the west front,
that which faced them, was still intact, though the
smoke eddied about it, and a dull glare from the
windows spoke of rooms beyond that were already in the
grip of the flames.  Between low hedges of box the two
pressed on, and climbed the terrace steps.

Here the heat drove to meet them full of stinging
particles of grit.  The hot blast dried the skin and
stung the eyes.  The wind blew strongly from the east,
but every now and then it veered, and then the fire
lapped round the corner and was blown out in long
dreadful tongues, which licked the walls as if tasting
them, and threw a crimson glare along the dark west
wing.  Great sparks like flashes of flame flew high and
far, and the dense reek made breathing painful.

"Look!" said Aline, catching her companion by the
arm, and pointing.  From where they stood the broad
south terrace was full in view, and the fire lighted it
brilliantly.  Below it, where the avenue ceased, was a
small crowd of dark gesticulating figures, intent on the
blazing pile.

"They can't see us," said Ange; "but come this way,
here, where the statue screens us."

They paused a moment, leaning against the pedestal
where a white Diana lifted an arrow against the glare.
Then both cried out simultaneously, for driven by a
sudden gust the smoke wreaths parted, and for a
moment they saw at a window above them a moving
whiteness,—an arm thrust out, only to fall again, and
hang with fatal limpness across the sill.

"Ah, it was Marguerite," cried Aline with catching
breath.  "I saw her face.  Marguerite!  Marguerite!"

"Hush!" said Mlle Ange.  "It is no use calling.
She has fainted.  Thank God she came this way.
There is a stair if I could only find it.  Once I knew
it well enough."

As she spoke she hurried into the smoke, and Aline
followed, gasping.

"Your cloak over your face, child, and remember you
must not faint."

How they gained the boudoir, Aline hardly knew, but
she found herself there with the smoke all round,
pressing on her like a solid thing, blinding, stinging,
choking.  Ahead of her Mlle Ange groped along the
wall.  Once she staggered, but with a great effort kept
on, and at last stopped and pressed with all her strength.

In the darkness appeared a darker patch, and then,
just as Aline's throbbing senses seemed about to fail her,
she felt her hand caught, she was pulled through a
narrow opening, her feet felt steps, mounted instinctively,
and her lungs drew in a long, long breath of relief, for
here the smoke had hardly penetrated, and the air,
though heavy, was quite fit to breathe.  For a moment
they halted and then climbed on.  The stair went
steeply up, wound to the left, and ceased.  Then again
Ange stood feeling for the catch with fingers that had
known it well enough in the dead days.  Now they
hesitated, tried here and there, failed of the secret, and
went groping to and fro, until Aline's blood beat in her
throat, and she could have cried out with fear and
impatience.  The moment seemed interminable, and
the smoke mounted behind them in ever-thickening whirls.

"It was here, mon Dieu, what has become of it?  So
many years ago, but I thought I could have found it
blindfold.  Réné showing me,—his hand on mine—ah,
at last," and with that the murmuring voice ceased, and
the panelling slipped smoothly back, letting in more
smoke, to press like a nightmare upon their already
labouring lungs.  Through it the window showed a red
square, against which was outlined a white, huddled
shape.  It was Marguerite, who lay just as she had
fallen, head bowed, one hand thrust out, the other at her
throat.  Ange and Aline stood by her for a moment
leaning from the window, and taking in what air they
might, and then the confusion and the stumbling began
once more, only this time they had a weight to carry, and
could shield neither eyes nor lungs from the pervading
smoke.  Twice they stopped, and twice that dreadful
roar of the fire, a roar that drowned even the heavy beat
of their burdened pulses, drove them on again, until at
last they stumbled out upon the terrace, and there
halted, gasping terribly.  The intolerable heat dripped
from them in a black sweat, and for a while they crouched
trembling in every limb.  Then Ange whispered with
dry lips:

"We must go on.  This is not safe."

They staggered forward once more, and even as they
did so there was a most appalling crash, and the flames
rushed up like a pyramid to heaven, making all the
countryside light with a red travesty of day.  Urged by
terror, and with a final effort, they dragged Marguerite
down the steps, and on, until they sank at last exhausted
under a cypress which watched the pool where the
fountain played no more.

In a minute or two Aline recovered sufficiently to wet
the hem of her cloak and bathe Marguerite's face.
This and the cold air brought her to with a shudder
and a cry.  She sat up coughing, and clung to Aline.

"Oh, save me, save me!"

"Chérie, you are saved."

"And they are burnt.  Oh, Holy Virgin, I shall see
it always."

"Don't talk of it, my dear!"

"Oh, I must.  I saw it, Aline; I saw it!  There was
a little thread of fire that ran up Louise's skirt, like a
gold wire.  Oh, mon Dieu!  They are burnt."

"Madame?" asked Ange, very low.

"Yes, yes; and Louise, poor Louise!  I was so cross
with her last night; but I did n't know.  I would n't
have been if I had known.  Oh, poor Louise!"

"Tell us what happened, my dear, if you can."

"Oh, I don't know."  Marguerite hid her face a
moment, and then spoke excitedly, pushing back her
dishevelled hair.  "I woke up with the smoke in my
throat, and ran in to la tante's room.  She had n't gone
to bed at all.  There she was in her big chair, sitting
up straight, Louise on her knees begging her to get up,
and all between the boards of the floor there was smoke
coming up, as if there were a great fire underneath."

"Underneath!  It began below, then?"

"Yes, Aline, she did it herself!  She must have crept
down and set light in ever so many places.  Yes, it is
true, for she boasted of it.  'Ange Desaix says I am the
last of the Montenay.  Very well, then; she shall see,
and the world shall see, how Montenay and I will go
together!'  That is what she said, and Louise screamed,
'Save yourself, Ma'mselle!'  But la tante nodded and
said, 'Yes, if you have wings, use them, by all
means.'  It was like some perfectly horrid dream.  I ran
through the rooms to see if I could get down the stairs,
but they were all in a blaze.  Then I ran back again;
but when I was still some way from the door I saw that
the fire was coming up through the floor.  Louise gave
one great scream, but la tante just sat and smiled, and
then the floor gave way, and they went down with a
crash.  Oh, Aline—Aline!"

"Oh, Marguerite, my dear—and you?"

Marguerite shuddered.

"I ran across the corridor and into the farthest
room, and the smoke came after me, and I fainted, and
then you came and saved me."

"Hush! there is some one coming," said Mlle Ange
in a quick whisper.

They crouched down and waited breathlessly.  Then,
after an agonised struggle, Marguerite coughed, and at
once a dark figure bore down on them.

"Thank the Saints I have found you," said Madelon's
voice.

Aline sprang up.

"Madelon—you?  How did you know?"

"Ah!  Bah—I saw you when you crossed the terrace.
I saw you were carrying some one.  Is it Madame?"

"No, no; a girl—younger than we are.  Oh, Madelon,
you will help us?"

"Well, at least I won't harm you—you know that;
but you are safe enough, so far, for no one else saw you.
They were all watching to see the roof fall in over there
to the right, and I should have been watching too, only
that my cousin Anne had just been scolding me so for
being there at all.  She said my baby would have
St. John's fire right across his face.  She herself has a
red patch over one eye, and only because her mother
would sit staring at the embers.  Well, I thought I
would be prudent, so I bade Jean Jacques look instead
of me, and turned my head the other way, and, just
as the flames shot up, I saw you cross the terrace and
go down the steps.  And now, what are you going to do
with Mademoiselle?"

This most pertinent question took them all aback, and
Marguerite looked up with round, bewildered eyes; she
certainly had no suggestions to make.  At last Mlle
Ange said slowly:

"She must come home with us."

"Impossible!  No, no, that would never do, dear
Ma'mselle."

"But there is nothing else to be done."

"Oh, there must be.  Why, you could not hide
an infant in your house.  Everything is known in the
village,—and—I should not trust Jeanne overmuch."

"Madelon!  Jeanne?  She has been with us a life-time."

"Maybe, but she hates the Montenay more than she
loves you and Mlle Marthe.  Also, she is jealous of
Madame here,—and—in fact, she has talked too much
already."

"Then what is to be done?" asked Ange distractedly.
She was trembling and unnerved.  That a man's foes
could be they of his own household, was one of those
horrible truths which now came home to her for the first
time.  "Jeanne," she kept repeating; "no, it is not
possible that Jeanne would do anything to harm us."

Madelon drew Aline aside.

"Jeanne is an old beast," she said frankly.  "I
always said so; but until the other day I did not think
she was unfaithful.  Now,—well, I only tell you that
my father said she had given him 'valuable
information.'  What do you make of that, eh?"

"What you do," said Aline calmly.

"Well, then, what next?"

"What do you advise?"

"Seigneur!  Don't put it on me.  What is there to
advise?"

As she spoke, with a shrug of her plump shoulders,
Marguerite came forward.  In her white undergarment,
with her brown hair loose and curling, and her brown
eyes brimmed with tears, she looked like a punished
child.  Even the smuts on her face seemed to add
somehow to the youth and pathos of her appearance.

"Oh, Aline," she said, with a half sob, "where am I to
go?  What am I to do?"  And in a moment the mother
in Madelon melted in her.

"There, there, little Ma'mselle," she said quickly,
"there 's nothing to cry about.  You shall come along
with me, and if I can't give you as fine a bed as you had
in this old gloomy place, at any rate it will be a safer
one, and, please the Saints, you 'll not be burnt out of it."

"No, no, Madelon, you mustn't," said Mlle Ange.

"And why not, chère Ma'mselle?"

"The danger—your father—your good husband.  It
would not be fair.  I will not let you do what you have
just said would be so dangerous."

"Dangerous for you, but not for me.  Who is going
to suspect me?  As to Jean Jacques, you need n't be
afraid of him.  Thank God he is no meddler, and what
I do is right in his eyes."

"Dear child, he is a good husband; but—but just
now you should not have anxiety or run any risks."

Madelon laughed, and then grew suddenly grave.

"Ah, you mean my baby.  Why, you are just like
Anne; but there, Ma'mselle, do you really think le bon
Dieu would let my baby suffer because I tried to help
poor little Ma'mselle here, who does n't look much more
than a baby herself?"

Ange kissed her impulsively.

"God bless you, my dear," she said.  "You are a
good woman, Madelon."

"Well, then, it is settled.  Here, take my cloak,
Ma'mselle.  What is your name?  Ma'mselle Marguerite,
then—no, not yours; it is much better that you
should not come into the matter any more, Ma'mselle
Ange, nor you, Madame.  Ma'mselle Marguerite will
put on my cloak and come along with me, and as quickly
as possible, since Jean Jacques will be getting impatient."

"Where is he, then?" asked Aline.

"Oh, yonder behind the big cypress.  I left him there
to keep a look-out and tell us if any one came this way.
He has probably gone to sleep, my poor Jean Jacques.
It took me a quarter of an hour to wake him, the great
sleepy head.  He had no desire to come, not he, and will
be only too thankful to be allowed to go back to bed
again."

"Now, Ma'mselle, are you ready?"

They went off together into the shadows, and Ange
and Aline took their way home to remove the smoke
and grime, and to tell Mlle Marthe the events of the
night.





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.. _`ESCAPE OF TWO MADCAPS`:

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   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium

   ESCAPE OF TWO MADCAPS

.. vspace:: 2

"Well, it is a mercy, only what's to happen next?"
said Mlle Marthe in the morning.

"I don't know," said Aline doubtfully.

Marthe caught her sister's hand.

"Now, Ange, promise me to keep out of it, and you,
Aline, I require you to do the same.  Madelon is a most
capable young woman, and if she and Jean Jacques
can't contrive something, yes, and run next to no risk
in doing so, you may be sure that you won't do any
better.  The sooner the girl is got out of the place the
better, and while she 's here, for Heaven's sake act
with prudence, and don't go sniffing round the secret,
like a dog with a hidden bone, until every one knows
it's there."

"My dearest, you forget we can't desert Madelon."

"My dear Ange, you may be a good woman, but
sometimes I think you 're a bit of a fool.  Don't you see
that Madelon is not in the least danger as long as you
keep well away from her?  Who does Mathieu suspect?
Us.  Well, and if you and Aline are always in Madelon's
pocket, do you think he will put it all down to an
interest in that impending infant of hers?  He 's not such
a fool,—and I wish to Heaven you weren't."

This adjuration produced sufficient effect to make
Mlle Ange pass Madelon on the road that very afternoon
with no more than a dozen words on either side.

"Approve of me," she said laughingly on her return.
"It was really very, very good of me, for there were a
hundred things I was simply dying to say."

Mlle Marthe was pleased to smile.

"Oh, you can be very angelic when you like, my
Angel.  Kindly remember that goodness is your rôle,
and stick to this particular version of it."

"Madelon says the poor child is rested.  She has put
her in the loft where she stored her winter apples."

"Sensible girl.  Now you would have given her the
best bed, if it meant everybody's arrest next moment."

"Oh, if it pleases you to say so, you may, but I 'm not
really quite so foolish as you try to make me out.
Mathieu thinks everyone was burnt."

"Well, one hoped he would.  For Heaven's sake keep
out of the whole matter, and he 'll continue to think so."

"Yes, I will.  I see you are right, dearest.  Jean
Jacques has a plan.  After a few days he thinks he could
get her out of the place.  Madelon would not tell me
more."

"Oho, Mademoiselle Virtue, then it was Madelon who
was good, not you."

"We were both good," asserted Ange demurely.

After that there were no further confidences between
Madelon and the ladies of the white house.  If they met
on the road, they nodded, passed a friendly greeting,
and went each on her own way without further words.

Ten days went by and brought them to the first week
of March.  It came in like the proverbial lamb, with
dewy nights which sparkled into tender sunny days.
The brushwood tangles reddened with innumerable
buds; here and there in the hedgerow a white violet
appeared like a belated snowflake, and in the
undergrowth primrose leaves showed fresh and green.  Aline
gave herself up to these first prophecies of spring.  She
roamed the woods and lanes for hours, finding in every
budded tree, in every promised flower, not only the
sweetest memories of her childhood, but also, God
knows what, of elusive beckoning hopes that played on
the spring stirring in her blood, as softly as the Lent
breeze, which brought a new blush to her cheek.  One
exquisite afternoon found her still miles from home.  So
many birds were singing that no one could have felt
the loneliness of the countryside.  She turned with
regret to make her way towards Rancy, taking here a
well-known and there an unfamiliar path.  Nearer home
she struck into the woods by a new and interesting
track.  It wandered a good deal, winding this way and
that until she lost her bearings and had no longer any
clear notion of what direction she was taking.  Presently
a sweetness met her, and with a little exclamation of
pleasure she went on her knees before the first purple
violets of the year.  It seemed a shame to pick, but
impossible to leave them, and by searching carefully
she obtained quite a bunch, salving her conscience with
the thought of what pleasure they would give Mlle
Marthe, who seemed so much more suffering of late.

"It is the spring—it will pass," Ange said repeatedly.

Aline walked on, violets in hand, wondering why the
spring, which brought new life to all Nature, should
bring—she caught herself up with a shiver—Death?
Of course there was no question of death.  How foolish
of her to think of it, but having thought, the thought
clung until she dwelt painfully upon it, and every
moment it needed a stronger effort to turn her mind
away.  So immersed was she that she did not notice at
all where she was going.  The little path climbed on,
pursued a tortuous way, and suddenly brought her out
to the east of the château, and in full view of its ruined
pile, where the blackened mass of it still smoked faintly,
and one high skeleton wall towered gaunt and bare,
its empty window spaces like the eyeless stare of a skull.

The sun was behind it, throwing it into strong relief,
and the sight brought back the sort of terror which the
place had always had for Aline.  She walked on quickly,
skirting the ruins and keeping to the outer edge of the
wide terraces, on her way to the familiar bridle-path,
which was her quickest way home.  When she came
into the Italian garden she paused, remembering the
nightmare of that struggle for Marguerite's life.  The
pool with its low stone rim reflected nothing more
terrible than sunset clouds now, but she still shuddered
as she thought how the smoke and flame had woven
strange spirals on its clear, passive mirror.  She stooped
now, and dipped her violets in the water to keep them
fresh.  Her own eyes looked back at her, very bright
and clear, and she smiled a little as she put up a hand
to smooth a straying curl.  Then, of a sudden she saw
her own eyes change, grow frightened.  A step sounded
on the path behind her, and another face appeared in
the pool,—a man's face—and a stranger's.

Aline got up quickly and turned to see a tall young
man in a riding-dress, who slapped his boot with a
silver-headed cane and exclaimed gallantly:

"Venus her mirror, no less!  Faith, my lady Venus,
can you tell me where I have the good fortune to find
myself?"

His voice was a deep, pleasant one, but it carried
Aline back oddly to her convent days, and it seemed
to her that she had heard Sister Marie Séraphine say,
"Attention, then, my child."

Then she remembered that Sister Marie Séraphine in
religion was Nora O'Connor in the world, and realised
that it was the kindly Irish touch upon French
consonants and vowels which she had in common with this
young man, who was surely as unlike a nun as he could
be.  She looked at him with great attention, and saw
red unpowdered hair cut to a soldier's (or a Republican's)
length, a face all freckles, and queer twinkling eyes, a
great deal too light for his skin.

"Monsieur my cousin, or I 'm much mistaken," she
said to herself, but aloud she answered:

"And do you not know where you are then, Citizen?"

"I know where I want to be, but I hope I have n't
got there," said the young man, coming closer.

"And why is that, Citizen?"

He made a quick impatient gesture.

"Oh, a little less of the Citizen, my dear.  I know
I 'm an ugly devil, but do I look like a Jacobin?"

Aline was amazed at his recklessness.

"Monsieur is a very imprudent person," she said
warningly.

"Monsieur would like to know where he is," responded
the young man, laughing.

She fixed her eyes on him.

"You are at Rancy-les-Bois, Monsieur."

He bit his lip, made a half turn, and indicated the
blackened ruins above them.

"And this?"

"This is, or was, the Château de Montenay."

In a minute all the freckles seemed to be accentuated
by the pallor of the skin below.  The hand that held
the cane gripped it until the knuckles whitened.  He
stared a minute or two at the faintly rising vapour that
told of heat not yet exhausted, and then said sharply:

"When was it burned?"

"Ten days ago."

"Any—lives—lost?"

"It is believed so," said Aline, watching him.

He put his hand to his face a moment, then let it
fall, and stood rigid, his queer eyes suddenly tragic, and
Aline could not forbear any longer.

"Marguerite is safe," she cried quickly and saw him
colour to the roots of his hair.

"Marguerite—mon Dieu!  I thought she was gone!"
and with that he sat down on the coping, put his head
down upon his arms, and a long sobbing breath or two
heaved his broad shoulders in a fashion that at once
touched and embarrassed Aline.

She drew nearer and watched uneasily, her own breathing
a little quicker than usual.  A woman's tears are of
small account to a woman, but when a man sobs, it
stirs in her the strangest mixture of pity, repulsion,
gentleness, and contempt.

"She is quite safe," she repeated nervously, whereupon
the young man raised his head, exclaiming in impulsive
tones:

"And a thousand blessings on you for saying it, my
dear," whilst in the same moment he slipped an arm
about her waist, pulled her a little down, and before she
could draw back, had kissed her very heartily upon the
cheek.

It had hardly happened before she was free, and a yard
away, with her head up, and a look in her eyes that
brought him to his feet, flushing and bowing.

"I ask a thousand pardons," he stammered.  "Indeed
if it had been the blessed Saint Bridget herself that gave
me that news, I 'd have kissed her, and meant no
disrespect.  For it was out of hell you took me, with the
best word I ever heard spoken.  You see, when I found
Marguerite gone with that old mad lady, her aunt, I was
ready to cut my throat, only I thought I 'd do more good
by following her.  Then when I saw these ruins, my
heart went cold, till it was all I could do to ask the
name.  And when you said it, and I pictured her there
under all these hot cinders—well, if you 've a heart in
you, you 'll know what I felt, and the blessed relief of
hearing she was safe.  Would n't you have kissed the
first person handy yourself, now?"

He regarded her with such complete earnestness that
Aline could hardly refrain from smiling.  She bent her
head a little and said:

"I can understand that Monsieur le Chevalier did not
know what he was doing."

He stared.

"What, you know me?"

"And do you perhaps think that I go about
volunteering information about Mlle de Matigny to every
stranger I come across?  Every one is not so imprudent
as M. Desmond."

"I 'll not deny my name, but that I 'm imprudent—yes,
with my last breath."

Aline could not repress a smile.

"Do you talk to all strangers as you did to me?" she
inquired.

"Come, now, how do you think I got here?" he
returned.

"I am wondering," she said drily.

"Well, it 's a simple plan, and all my own.  When I
see an honest face I let myself go, and tell the whole
truth.  Not a woman has failed me yet, and if I 've told
the moving tale of my pursuit of Marguerite to one
between this and Bâle, I 've told it to half a dozen."

Aline gasped.

"Oh, it 's a jewel of a plan," he said easily, "and much
simpler than telling lies.  There are some who can
manage their lies, but mine have a way of disagreeing
amongst themselves that beats cock-fighting.  No, no,
it 's the truth for me, and see how well it 's served me.
So now you know all about me, but I 've no notion who
you are."

"I am a friend of Marguerite's, fortunately," she
said, "and, I believe, M. le Chevalier, that I am a cousin
of yours."

Mr. Desmond looked disappointed.

"My dear lady, it would be so much more wonderful
if you were n't.  You see my great-grandfather had
sixteen daughters, besides sons to the number of eight
or so, and between them they married into every family
in Europe, or nearly every one.  Marguerite is n't a
cousin, bless her.  Now, I wonder, would you be a
grand-daughter of my Aunt Elizabeth, who ran away with her
French dancing-master, in the year of grace 1740?"

The blood of the Rochambeau rose to Aline's cheeks
in a becoming blush, as she answered with rather an
indignant negative.

"No?" said Mr. Desmond regretfully.  "Well, then,
a pity it is too, for never a one of my Aunt Elizabeth's
descendants have I met with yet, and I 'm beginning to
be afraid that she was so lost to all sense of the family
traditions as to die without leaving any."

"If she so far forgot," Aline began a little haughtily,
and then, remembering, blushed a very vivid crimson,
and was silent.

"Well, well, I 'm afraid she did," sighed Mr. Desmond;
"and now I come to think of it you 'll be Conor
Desmond's granddaughter, he that was proscribed, and
racketed all over Europe.  His daughter married a
M. de—Roche—Roche——"

"Rochambeau, Monsieur.  Yes, I was Aline de
Rochambeau."

"Was?" said Mr. Desmond curiously, and then fell
to whistling.

"Oh, my faith, yes, I remember,—Marguerite told
me," and there was a slight embarrassed pause which
Desmond broke into with a laugh.

"After all, now, that kiss was not so out of place,"
he said, with a twinkle in his green eyes.  "Cousins may
kiss all the world over."

His glance was too frank to warrant offence, and
Aline answered it with a smile.

"With Monsieur's permission I shall wait until I can
kiss Madame ma cousine," she said, and dropped him a
little curtsey.

Mr. Desmond sighed.

"I wish we were all well out of this," he said gloomily;
"but how in the devil's name, or the saints' names, or
any one else's name, we are to get out of it, I don't
know.  Well, well, the sooner it's tried the better;
so where is Marguerite, Madame my cousin?"

Aline considered.

"I can't take you to her without asking leave of the
friend she is with," she said at last; "but if you will
wait here I will go and speak to her, and come back again
when we have talked things over.  We shall have
to wait till it is quite dark, and you 'll be careful, won't
you?"

"I will," said Mr. Desmond, without hesitation.  He
kissed his hand to Aline as she went off, and she frowned
at him, then smiled to herself, and disappeared amongst
the trees, walking quickly and wondering what was to
come next.

At eleven o'clock that night a council of four sat in
the apple loft at the mill.  Marguerite, perched on a
pile of hay, was leaning against Aline, who sat beside
her.  Every now and then she let one hand fall within
reach of Mr. Desmond, who, reclining at her feet,
invariably kissed it, and was invariably scolded for doing
so.  Madelon sat on the edge of the trap-door, her feet
supported by the top rungs of the ladder which led to
the barn below.  She and Aline were grave, Marguerite
pouting, and Mr. Desmond very much at his ease.

"But what plan have you?" Aline was asking.

"Oh, a hundred," he said carelessly.

Marguerite pulled her hand away with a jerk.

"Then you might at least tell us one," she said.

"Ah, now I 'd tell you anything when you look at me
like that," he said with fervour.

"Then, tell me.  No, now,—at once."

He sat up and extracted a paper from his waistcoat
pocket.  It set forth that the Citizen Lemoine and his
wife were at liberty to travel in France at their pleasure.

"In France," said Aline.

"Why, yes, one can't advertise oneself as an emigré.
Once on the frontier, one must make a dash for it,—it's
done every day."

"But it says his wife," objected Marguerite, "and
I 'm not your wife."

"And I 'm not Lemoine, but it does n't hurt my conscience
to say I am,—not in the least," returned Mr. Desmond.

"But I can't go with you like that," she protested.
"What would grandmamma have said?"

Mr. Desmond gave an ironical laugh.  "Your sainted
grandmamma is past knowing what we do, and we 're
past the conventions, my dear," he observed, but she
only sat up the straighter.

"Indeed, Monsieur, you may be, but I 'm not.  Why,
there was Julie de Lérac, who escaped with her brother's
friend.  It was when I was in prison, and I heard what
grandmamma and the other ladies said of her.  Nothing
would induce me to be spoken of like that."

"But your life depends on it.  Marguerite, don't you
trust me?"

"Why, of course; but that has nothing to do with it."

"But, my dearest child, what is to be done?  You
can't stay here, and we can't be married here, so the
only thing to be done is to get away, and then we 'll be
married as soon as your father will allow it.  My aunt
Judith's money has come in the very nick of time, for
now we 'll be able to go back to the old place.  Ah,
you 'll love Ireland."

Marguerite tapped with her foot.

"Why can't we be married now?" she said quickly.

Madelon, who had been listening in silence, started
and looked up, but did not speak.

"Impossible," said Mr. Desmond; and Aline whispered:

"My dear, you could n't."

"Why not?  There is a priest here."

"You could n't trust him.  He has taken the oath to
the Convention," said Aline.

"Well but—Madelon, you told me of him; tell
them what you said.  Do you think he would betray us?"

"How do I know?" said Madelon, with a frown.  "I
do not think so, but one never knows.  It is a risk."

"I don't mind the risk."

"To us all," continued Madelon bluntly.  "I am
thinking of more than you, little Ma'mselle."

"Who is this priest?" asked Desmond.  "What do
you know of him?"

"What I know is from my husband's cousin, Anne
Pinel, who is his housekeeper.  He took the oath, and
ever since he has a trouble on his mind, and walks at
night, sometimes all night long.  At first Anne would
get up and listen, and then she would hear groans and
prayers, and once he called out: 'Judas!  Judas!  Judas!'
so that she was frightened, and went back to her bed
and put her hands over her ears.  Now she takes no
notice, she is so used to it."

"There!" cried Marguerite.  "Poor man, if he can
torment himself in such a way he would not put a fresh
burden on his conscience by betraying us.  Besides,
why should he?  I have a beautiful plan."

"Well?"

"We shall start at night; and first we will go to the
priest's house, and I shall throw pebbles at his window.
He will open, and I shall say, 'Mon père, here are two
people who wish to be married.'

"Yes! and he 'd want to know why?"

"Of course, and I shall say, 'Mon père, we are
escaping for our lives, and we wish to be married because
I am a jeune fille bien élevée, and my grandmamma
would turn in her grave at the thought of my crossing
France alone with ma fiancé; and then he will marry
us, and we shall walk away again, and go on walking
until we can't walk any more."

"Marguerite, what folly!" cried Aline, and Madelon
nodded her head.

"It's a beautiful plan!" exclaimed Mr. Desmond.
He had his betrothed's hand in his once more, and was
kissing it unrebuked.  "My dear, we were made for
each other, for it's a scheme after my own heart!
Madame, my cousin, will you come with us?"

"Oh, yes, as chaperon, and then we needn't bother
about getting married," said Marguerite, kissing her.

"That's not what I meant at all," observed Mr. Desmond
reproachfully, and Aline was obliged to laugh.

"No, no, ma mie; not even to keep you out of so mad
a scrape," she said, and Madelon nodded again.

"No, no," she echoed.  "That would be a pretty state
of affairs.  There is Citizen Dangeau to be thought of.
Deputies' wives must not emigrate."

Aline drew away from Marguerite, and caught
Madelon by the arm.

"What's to be done?" she asked.

"Why, let them go."

"But the plan 's sheer folly."

Madelon shrugged.

"Madame Aline," she said in a low voice, "look at
them.  Is it any use talking? and we waste time.
Once I saw a man at a fair.  There was a rope stretched
between two booths, and he walked on it.  Then a
woman in the crowd screamed out, 'Oh, he will fall!'
and he looked down at her, went giddy, and fell.  He
broke his leg; but if no one had called out he would not
have fallen."

"You mean?"

"It will be like walking on the rope for Monsieur
and little Ma'mselle Marguerite, all the way until they
get out of France.  If they think they can do it,—well,
they say God helps those who cannot help themselves,
and perhaps they will get across safely; but if they get
frightened, if they think of the danger, they will be like
the man who looked down and grew giddy, and pouf!—it
will be all over."

"But this added risk——"

"I do not think there is much risk.  The curé is
timid; for his own sake he will say nothing.  If Anne
hears anything, she will shut her ears; and, Madame
Aline, the great thing is for them to get away.  I tell
you, I am afraid of my father.  He watches us.  I do
not like his eyes."

She broke off, looking troubled; and Desmond stopped
whispering to Marguerite and turned to them.

"Well, you good Madelon, we shall be off your mind
to-morrow.  Tell us where this curé lives; set us in the
way, and we 'll be off as soon as may be.  My dear
cousin, believe me that frown will bring you lines ten
years before they are due.  Do force a smile, and wish
us joy."

"To-night!" exclaimed Aline.

"Yes, that's best," said Madelon decidedly.  "Little
Ma'mselle knows that she has been a welcome guest,
but she 's best away, and that 's the truth.  If we had n't
been watched, Jean Jacques would have driven her out
in the cart a week ago."

"Watched!  By whom?" Desmond's eyes were alert.

"By my father, Mathieu Leroux, the inn-keeper."

"Ah! well, we 'll be away by morning—in fact we 'll
be moving now.  Marguerite is ready.  Faith, now I 've
found the comfort of travelling without mails, I 'm ready
to swear I 'll never take them again."

"I 'm not," said Marguerite, with a whimsical glance
at her costume, which consisted of an old brown skirt
of Madelon's, a rough print bodice, and a dark, patched
cloak, which covered her from head to foot.  They stole
out noiselessly, Madelon calling under her breath to the
yard dog, who sniffed at them in the darkness, and then
lay down again with a rustle of straw.

Afterwards Aline thought of the scene which followed
as the most dreamlike of all her queer experiences.
The things which she remembered most vividly were
Marguerite's soft ripple of laughter, half-childish,
half-nervous, as she threw a handful of pebbles at the curé's
window, and the moonlight glinting on the pane as the
casement opened.  What followed was like the
inconsequent and fantastic dramas of sleep.

The explanations—the protests, the curé's voice ashake
with timidity, until at last his fear of immediate
discovery overbore his terror of future consequences, and
he began to murmur the words which Aline had heard
last in circumstances as strange, and far more terrifying.
For days she wondered to herself over the odd scene:
Desmond with his head bent towards his betrothed, and
his deep voice muffled; and Marguerite pledging herself
childishly—taking the great vows, and smiling all the
time.  Only at the very end she turned and threw her
arms round Aline, holding her as if she would never
leave go, and straining against her with a choked sob
or two.

"No, no, I can't go—I can't!" she murmured, but
Aline wrenched herself away.

"Marguerite, for God's sake!" she said.  "It is too
late,—you must go"; and as Desmond stepped between
them Marguerite caught his arm and held it in a wild grip.

"Oh, you'll save me!"  And for once Aline was
thankful for his tone of careless ease——

"My jewel, what a question!  Why, we 're off on our
honeymoon.  'T is a most original one.  Well, we must
go.  Good-bye, my cousin," and he took Aline's hand
in a grip that surprised her.

"I'll not forget what you've done," he said, and
kissed it; and so, without more ado, they were gone, and
Aline was alone in the chequered moonlight before the
priest's house, where the closed window spoke of the haste
with which M. le Curé withdrew himself from participation
in so perilous an affair.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A DYING WOMAN`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium

   A DYING WOMAN

.. vspace:: 2

Next day brought it home to Madelon how true her
forebodings had been.  Noon brought her a visit
from her father, and nothing would serve him but to go
into every hole and corner.  He alleged a wish to admire
her housewifery, but the dark brow with which he
accompanied her, and the quick, suspicious glances which
he cast all round, made Madelon thank every saint in
the calendar that the fugitives were well on the road,
and that she had removed every trace of their presence
betimes.

"Mon Dieu, Madame Aline!" she said afterwards,
"when he came to the apple loft he seemed to know
something.  There he stood, not speaking, but just
staring at me, like a dog at a rat-hole.  I tell you, I
thanked Saint Perpetua, whose day it was, that the rats
were away!"  In the end he went away, frowning,
and swearing a little to himself, and quiet days set in.

No news was good news, and no news came; presently
Aline stopped being terrified at every meeting with the
inn-keeper, or the curé, and then Mlle Marthe became
so ill that all interests centred in her sick-room.  Her
malady, which had remained stationary for so long,
began to gain ground quickly, and nights and days of
agony consumed her strength, and made even the sister
to whom she was everything look upon Death as the
Angel not of the Sword, but of Peace.

One day the pain ebbed with the light, and at sunset
she was more comfortable than she had been for a long
while.  Aline persuaded Mlle Ange to go and lie down
for a little, and she and Marthe were alone.

"The day is a long time going," said Marthe after a
silence of some minutes.

"Yes, the days are lengthening."

"And mine are shortening,—only I 'm an unreasonable
time over my dying.  It's a trial to me, for I liked to
do things quickly.  I suppose no one has ever known
what it has been to me to see Jeanne pottering about
her work, or Ange moving a chair, or a book, in her
slow, deliberate way; and now that it's come to my
turn I 'm having my revenge, and inflicting the same
kind of annoyance on you."

She spoke in a quick, toneless voice, that sounded
very feeble,—almost as if the life going from her had
left it behind as a stranded wreck of sound.

Aline turned with a sob.

"Heavens, child! did you think I did n't know I was
going, or that I expected you to cry over me?  You 've
been a butt for my sharp tongue too often to be heart-broken
when there 's a chance of your being left in peace."

"Oh, don't!" said Aline, choking; and something in
voice and face brought a queer look to the black,
mocking eyes.

"What, you really care a little?  My dear, it's too
amiable of you.  Why, Aline,"—as the girl buried her
face in her hands,—"why, Aline!"

There was a pause, and then the weak voice went on
again:

"If you do care at all—if I mean anything at all in
your life—then I will ask you one thing.  What are you
doing to Jacques?"

"Was that why you hated me?" said Aline quickly.

"Oh, hate?  Well, I never hated you, but—Yes,
that was it.  He and Ange are the two things I 've had
to love, and though I don't suppose he thinks about me
twice a year, still his happiness means more to me than
it does—well, to you."

"Oh, that's not true!" cried Aline on a quick breath.

Marthe Desaix looked sharply at her.

"Aline," she said, "how long are you going to break
his heart and your own?"

"I don't know," whispered the girl.  "There's so
much between us.  Too much for honour."

"Too much for pride, Aline de Rochambeau," said
Marthe with cruel emphasis, and her own name made
Aline wince.  It seemed a thing of hard, unyielding
pride; a thing her heart shrank from.

"Listen to me.  When he is dead over there in
Spain, what good will your pride do you?  Women who
live without love, or natural ties, what do they become?
Hard, and sour, and bitter, like me; or foolish, and
spiteful, and soft, and petty.  I tell you, I could have
shed the last drop of my blood, worked my fingers to
the raw stump, for the man I loved.  I 'd have borne
his children by the roadside, followed him footsore
through the world, slept by his side in the snow, and
thought myself blessed.  But to me there came neither
love nor lover.  Aline, can you live in other people's
lives, love with other women's hearts, rear and foster
other mothers' children as Ange does?  That is the
only road for a barren woman, that does not lead to
desert places and a land dry as her heart.  Can you
take my sister's road?  Is there nothing in you that
calls out for the man who loves you, for the children
that might be yours?  Is your pride more to you than
all this?"

Aline looked up steadily.

"No," she said, "it is nothing.  I would do as you
say you would have done, but there was one thing I
thought I could not do.  May I tell you the whole
story now?  I have wished to often, but it is hard to
begin."

"Tell me," said Marthe; and Aline told her all,
from the beginning.

When she had finished she saw that Marthe's eyes
were closed, and moved a little to rise, thinking that
she had dropped asleep.  But as she did so the eyes
opened again, and Marthe said fretfully, "No, I heard
it all.  It is very hard to judge, very hard."

Aline looked at her in alarm, for she seemed all at
once to have grown very old.

"Yes, it is hard.  Life is so difficult," she went on
slowly—weakly, "I 'm glad to be going out of it—out
into the dark."

Aline kissed her hand, and spoke wistfully:

"Is it all so dark to you?"

"Why yes, dark enough—cold enough—lonely enough.
Is n't it so to you?"

"Not altogether, ma tante."

"What, because of those old tales which you believe?
Well, if they comfort you, take comfort from them.  I
can't."

"But Mlle Ange—believes?"

Marthe frowned impatiently.

"Who knows what Ange believes?  Not she herself.
She is a saint to be sure, but orthodox?  A hundred
years ago she would have been lucky if she had escaped
Purgatory fire in this life.  She is content to wander in
vague, beautiful imaginings.  She abstracts her mind,
and calls it prayer; confuses it, and says she has been
meditating.  I am not like that.  I like things clear and
settled, with a good hard edge to them.  I should have
been the worker and Ange the invalid,—no, no! what
am I saying?  God forgive me, I don't mean that."

"You would not like to see M. le Curé?" said Aline
timidly.  The question had been on her lips a hundred
times, but she had not had the courage to let it pass
them.

Mlle Marthe was too weak for anger, but she raised
her eyebrows in the old sarcastic way.

"Poor man," she said, "he needs absolution a great
deal more than I do.  He thinks he has sold his soul,
and can't even enjoy the price of it.  After all, those
are the people to pity—the ones who have courage
for neither good nor evil."

She lay silent for a long while then, and watched the
sunset colours burn to flame, and fade to cold ash-grey.

Suddenly Aline said:

"Ma tante."

"Well?"

"Ma tante, do you think he loves me still?"

"Why should he?"

The girl took her breath sharply, and Mlle Marthe
moved her head with an impatient jerk.

"There, there, I 'm too near my end to lie.  Jacques
is like his mother, he has n't the talent of forgetfulness."

"He looked so hard when he went away."

"Little fool, if he had smiled he would have
forgotten easily enough."

Aline turned her head aside.

"Listen to me," said Mlle Marthe insistently.  "What
kind of a man do you take your husband to be, good
or bad?"

"Oh, he is good—don't I know that!  What would
have become of me if he had been a bad man?" said the
girl in a tense whisper.

"Then would you not have him follow his conscience?
In all that is between you has he not acted as a man
should do?  Would you have him do what is right in
your eyes and not in his own; follow your lead, take the
law from you?  Do you, or does any woman, desire a
husband like that?"

Aline did not answer, only stared out of the window.
She was recalling the King's death, Dangeau's vote, and
her passion of loyalty and pain.  It seemed to her now
a thing incredibly old and far away, like a tale read of
in history a hundred years ago.  Something seemed to
touch her heart and shrivel it, as she wondered if in
years to come she would look back as remotely upon the
love, and longing, which rent her now.

There was a long, long silence, and in the end Mlle
Marthe dozed a little.  When Ange came in, she found
her lying easily, and so free from pain that she took
heart and was quite cheerful over the little sick-room
offices.  But at midnight there was a change,—a greyness
of face, a labouring of failing lungs,—and with the dawn
she sighed heavily once or twice and died, leaving the
white house a house of mourning.

Mlle Ange took the blow quietly, too quietly to
satisfy Aline, who would rather have seen her weep.
Her cold, dreamy composure was somehow very
alarming, and the few tears she shed on the day
they buried Marthe in the little windy graveyard
were dried almost as they fell.  After that she took
up all her daily tasks at once, but went about them
abstractedly.

Even the children could not make her smile, or a
visit to the grave draw tears.  The sad monotony of
grief settled down upon the household, the days were
heavy, work without zest, and a wet April splashed the
window-panes with torrents of warm, unceasing rain.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BETRAYAL`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXVII


.. class:: center medium

   BETRAYAL

.. vspace:: 2

In the early days of April the wind-swept,
ice-tormented Pyrenees had been exchanged for the
Spanish lowlands, vexed by the drought and heat of
those spring days.  If the army had suffered from
frostbite and pneumonia before, it groaned now under a
plague of dysentery, but it was still, and increasingly,
victorious.  An approving Convention sent congratulatory
messages to Dugommier, who enjoyed the distinction—somewhat
unusual for a general in those days—of
having been neither superseded nor recalled to suffer
an insulting trial and an ignoble death.

France had a short way with her public servants just
then.  Was an army in retreat?  To Paris with the
traitor who commanded it.  Was an advantage insufficiently
followed up?  To the guillotine with the officer
responsible.  Dumouriez saved his head by going to
Austria with young Égalité at his heels, but many and
many a general who had led the troops of France looked
out of the little window, and was flung into the
common trench, to be dust in dust with nobles,
great ladies, common murderers, and the poor Queen
herself.  Closer and closer shaved the national razor,
heavier and heavier fell the pall upon blood-soaked
Paris.  Marat, long since assassinated, and canonised
as first Saint of the New Calendar, with rites of an
impiety quite indescribable, would, had he lived, have
seen his prophecy fulfilled.  Paris had drunk and was
athirst again, and always with that drunkard's craving
which cannot be allayed—no, not by all the floods of the
infernal lake.  Men were no longer men, but victims
of a horrible dementia.  Listen to Hébert demanding
the Queen's blood.

"Do you think that any of us will be able to save
ourselves?" he cries.  "I tell you we are all damned
already, but if my blood must flow, it shall not flow
alone.  I tell you that if we pass, our passing shall
devastate France, and leave her ruined and bloody, a spectacle
for the nations!"  And this at the beginning of the Terror!

A curious thought comes to one.  Are these words,
instinct with pure, fate-driven tragedy, the fruit of
Hébert's mind—Hébert gross with Paris slime, sensual,
self-seeking, flushed with evil living? or is he, too,
unwillingly amongst the prophets, mouthpiece only of an
immutable law, which, outraged by him and his like,
pronounces thus an irrevocable doom?

Well might Danton write—"This is chaos, and the
worlds are a-shaping.  One cannot see one's way for the
red vapour.  I am sick of it—sick.  There is nothing
but blood, blood, blood.  Camille says that the infernal
gods are athirst.  If they are not glutted soon there
will be no blood left to flow.  They may have mine
before long.  Maximilian eyes my head as if it irked
him to see it higher than his own.  If it were off he
would seem the taller.  I am going home to Arles—with
my wife.  The spring is beautiful there, and the
Aube runs clean from blood.  It were better to fish
its waters than to meddle with the governing of men."

Dangeau sighed heavily as he destroyed the letter.
Surely the strong hand would be able to steer the ship
to calmer waters, and yet there was a deep sense of
approaching fatality upon him.

His fellow-Commissioner was of Robespierre's party,—a
tall man, wonderfully thin, with grizzled hair, and a
nose where the bony ridge showed yellow under the
tight skin.  He had a cold, suspicious eye, light grey,
with a green under-tinge, and was, as Dangeau knew
beyond a doubt, a spy both on himself and on
Dugommier.  There came an April day full of heat, and
sullen with brooding thunder.  Dangeau in his tent,
writing his report, found the pen heavy in his hand, and
for once was glad of the interruption, when Vibert's
shadow fell across the entrance, and his long form bent
to enter at the low door.

"Ah, come in," he said, pushing his inkstand away;
and Vibert, who had not waited for the invitation, sat
down and looked at him curiously for a moment.  Then
he said:

"A courier from Paris came in an hour ago."

Dangeau stretched out his hand, but the other held
his papers close.

"There is news,—weighty news," he continued; and
Dangeau felt his courage leap to meet an impending blow.

"What news?" he asked, quite quietly, hand still
held out.

"You are Danton's friend?"

"As you very well know, Citizen."

Vibert flung all his papers on the table.

"You 'll be less ready to claim his friendship in the
future, I take it," he said, with a sudden twang of steel
in his voice.  Dangeau turned frightfully pale, but the
hand that reached for the letters was controlled.

"Your meaning, Citizen?"

Vibert's strident laugh rang out.

"Danton was—somebody, and your friend.  Danton
is—a name and nothing more.  Once the knife has
fallen there is not a penny to choose between him and
any other carrion.  A good riddance to France, and all
good patriots will say 'Amen' to that."

"Patriots!" muttered Dangeau, and then fell to
reading the papers with bent head and eyes resolutely
calm.  When he looked up no one would have guessed
that he was moved, and the sneering look which dwelt
upon his face glanced off again.  He met Vibert's eyes
full, his own steady with a cold composure, and after a
moment or two the thin man shuffled with his feet, and
spat noisily.

"Well," he said, "Robespierre for my money; but, of
course, Danton was backing you, and you stand to lose
by his fall."

"Ah," said Dangeau softly, "you think so?"

He looked to the open door of the tent as he spoke.
The flap was rolled high to let in the air, and showed
a slope, planted with vines in stiff rows, and, above, a
space of sky.  This seemed to consist of one low,
bulging cloud, dark with suppressed thunder, and in the
heavy bosom of it a pulse of lightning throbbed
continually.  With each throb the play of light grew more
vivid, whilst out of the distance came a low, answering
boom, the far-off heart-beat of the storm.  Dangeau's
eyes rested on the prospect with a strange, sardonic
expression.  Danton was dead, and dead with him all
hopes that he might lead a France, purged terribly, and
regenerate by fire and blood, to her place as the first,
because the freest, of nations.  Danton was dead, and
Paris adrift, unrestrained, upon a sea of blood.  Danton
was dead, and the last, lingering, constructive purpose
had departed from a confederacy given over to a mere
drunken orgy of destruction—slaves to an ignoble
passion for self-preservation.  To Dangeau's thought
death became suddenly a thing honourable and to be
desired.  From the public services of those days it
was the only resignation, and he saw it now before
him, inevitable, more dignified than life beneath a
squalid yoke.  All the ideals withered, all the idols
shattered, youth worn through, patriotism chilled,
disenchantment, disintegration, decay,—these he saw in
sombre retrospect, and nausea, long repressed, broke
upon him like a flood.

A flash brighter than any before shot in a vicious fork
across the blackening sky, and the thunder followed it
close, with a crash that startled Vibert to his feet.

Dangeau sat motionless, but when the reverberations
had died away, he leaned across the table, still with that
slight smile, and said:

"And what do you say of me in your report, Vibert?"

Still dazed with the noise, the man stared nervously.

"My report, Citizen?"

"Your report, Vibert."

"My report to the Convention?"

Dangeau laughed, with the air of a man who is
enjoying himself.  After the dissimulation, the hateful
necessity for repression and evasion, frankness was a
luxury.

"Oh, no, my good Vibert, not your report to the
Convention.  It is your report to Robespierre that I
mean.  I have a curiosity to know how you mean to
put the thing.  'Emotion at hearing of Danton's death,'
is that your line, eh?"

"Citizen——"

"What, protestations?  Really, Vibert, you underrate
my intelligence.  Shall I tell you what you said about
me last time?"

Vibert shifted his eyes to the door, and seemed to
measure his distance from it.

"What I said last time, Citizen?" he stammered.
Once out of the tent he knew he could break Dangeau
easily enough, but at present, alone with a man who
he was aware must be desperate, he felt a creeping in his
bones, and a strong desire to be elsewhere.

Dangeau's lip lifted.

"Be reassured, my friend.  I am not a spy, and I
really have no idea what it was that you said, though
now that you have been so obligingly transparent I
think I might hazard a guess.  It would be a pity if
this week's report were to contain nothing fresh.
Robespierre might even be bored—in the intervals of killing
his betters."

Vibert's lips closed with a snap.  Here was recklessness,
here was matter enough to condemn a man who
stood firmer than Dangeau.

Dangeau leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.

"You agree with me that that would be a pity?
Very well then, you may get out your notebook and
write the truth for once.  Tell the incorruptible
Maximilian that he is making the world too unpleasant a
place for any self-respecting Frenchman to care about
remaining in it, and, if that is not enough, you can inform
him that Danton's blood will yet call loud enough to bid
him down to hell."

There was no emotion at all in his voice.  He spoke
drily, as one stating facts too obvious to require any
stress of tone, or emphasis.

Vibert was puzzled, but his nerves were recovering,
and he wrote defiantly, looking up with a half-start at
every other word as if he expected to see Dangeau's arm
above him, poised to strike.

Dangeau shrugged his shoulders.

"You needn't be afraid," he said, with hard
contempt.  "You are too obviously suited to the present
débâcle for me to wish to remove you from it.  No
doubt your time will come, but I have no desire to play
Sanson's part."

Vibert winced.  Perhaps he saw the red-edged axe
of the Revolution poised above him.  When, four months
later, he was indeed waiting for it to fall, they say he
cursed Dangeau very heartily.

The lightning stabbed with a blinding flame, the
thunder crashed scarce a heart-beat behind, and with
that the rain began.  It fell in great gouts and splashes,
with here and there a big hailstone, and for a minute or
two the air seemed full of water, pierced now by a sudden
flare of blue, and shattered again by the roar that
followed.  Then, as it had come, so it went, and in a
moment the whirl of the wind swept the sky clear again.

Vibert pulled himself together.  His long limbs had
stiffened into a curious rigidity whilst the storm was at
its height, but now they came out of it with a jerk.
He thrust his notebook into the pocket which bulged
against his thin form, and under his drooping lids
he sent a queer, inquisitive glance at his companion.
Dangeau was leaning back in his chair, one arm thrown
carelessly over the back of it, his attitude one of
acquiescence, his expression that of a man released from some
distasteful task.  Vibert had seen many a man under
sentence of death, but this phase piqued him, and he
turned in the doorway.

"Come then, Dangeau," he said, with a would-be
familiar air, "what made you do it?  Between colleagues
now?  I may tell you, you had fairly puzzled me.
When you read those papers, I could have sworn you
did not care a jot, that it was all one to you who was at
the top of the tree so you kept your own particular
branch; and then, just as I was thinking you had bested
me, and betrayed nothing, out you come with your
'To hell with Robespierre.'  What the devil took you?"

Dangeau looked at him with a strange gleam in his
eyes.  The impulse to speak, to confide, attacks us at
curious moments; years may pass, a man may be set in
all circumstances that invite betrayal, he may be closeted
with some surgeon skilled in the soul's hurts, and the
impulse may not wake,—and then, quite suddenly, at an
untoward time, and to a listener the most unlikely, his
soul breaks bounds and displays its secret springs.

Such an hour was upon Dangeau now, and he experienced
its intoxication to the full.

"My reason?" he said slowly.  "My good Vibert, is
one a creature of reason?  For me, I doubt it—I doubt
it.  Look at our reasonable town of Paris, our reasonable
Maximilian, our reasonable guillotine.  Heavens! how
the infernal powers must laugh at us and our reason."

Then of a sudden the sneer dropped out of his tone,
and a ring almost forgotten came to it, and brought each
word distinctly to Vibert's ear, though the voice itself
fell lower and lower, as he spoke less and less to the man
in the tent-door and more and more to his own
crystallising thoughts.

"My reason?  Impulse,—just the sheer animal desire
to strike at what hurts.  What was reason not to do for
us? and in the end we come back to impulse again.  A
vicious circle everywhere.  The wheel turns, and we
rise, fancying the stars are within our grasp.  The wheel
turns on, and we fall,—lose the stars and have our
wage—a handful of bloody dust.  Louis was a tyrant, and
he fell.  I had a hand in that, and said, 'Tyranny is
dead.'  Dead?  Just Heaven! and in Paris to-day every
man is a tyrant who is not a victim.  Tyranny has the
Hydra's gift of multiplying in death.  Better one tyrant
than a hundred.  Perhaps Robespierre thinks that, but
God knows it is better a people should be oppressed
than that they should become oppressors."  Here his
head came up with a jerk, and his manner changed
abruptly.  "And then," he continued, with a little
bow, "and then, you see, I am so intolerably bored
with your society, my good Vibert."

Vibert scowled, cursed, and went out.  Half an hour
afterwards he thought of several things he might have
said, and felt an additional rancour against Dangeau
because they had not come to him at the time.  A mean
creature, Vibert, and not quick, but very apt for dirty
work, and therefore worth his price to the Incorruptible
Robespierre.

Dangeau, left alone, fell to thinking.  His strange
elation was still upon him, and he felt an unwonted
lightness of spirit.  He began to consider whether he
should wait to be arrested, or end now in the Roman way.
Suicide was much in vogue at the time, and was gilded
with a strong halo of heroics.  The doctrine of a purpose
in the individual existence being rejected, the Stoic
argument that life was a thing to be laid down at will seemed
reasonable enough.  It appealed to the dramatic sense,
a thing very inherent in man, and the records of the times
set down almost as many suicides as executions.
Dangeau had often enough maintained man's right to
relinquish that which he had not asked to receive, but at
this crisis in his life there came up in him old teachings,
those which are imperishable, because they have their
roots in an imperishable affection.  His mother, whom
he adored, had lived and died a devout Catholic, and
there came back to him now a strange, faint sense of
the dignity and purpose of the soul, of life as a trial,
life as a trust.  It seemed suddenly nobler to endure
than to relinquish.  An image of the deserter flitted
through his brain, to be followed by another of the child
that pettishly casts away a broken toy, and from that
his mind went back, back through the years.  For a
moment his mother's eyes looked quite clearly into his,
and he heard her voice say, "Jacques, you do not listen."

Ah, those tricks of the brain!  How at a touch, a
turn of the head, a breath, a scent, the past rises quick,
and the brain, phonograph and photograph in one,
shows us our dead again, and brings their voices to our
ears.  Dangeau saw the chimney corner, and a crooked
log on the fire.  The resin in it boiled up, and ran down
all ablaze.  He watched it with wondering, childish
eyes, and heard the gentle voice at his ears say, "Jacques,
you do not listen."

It was there and gone between one breath and the
next, but it took with it the dust of years, and left the
old love very fresh and tender.  Ah—the dear woman,
the dear mother.  "Que Dieu te bénisse," he said
under his breath.

The current of thought veered to Aline, and at that
life woke in him, the desire to live, the desire of her,
the desire to love.  Then on a tide of bitterness, "She
will be free."  Quickly came the answer, "Free and
defenceless."

He sank his head in his hands, and, for the first time
for months, deliberately evoked her image.

It seemed as if Fate were concerning herself with
Dangeau's affairs, for she sent a bullet Vibert's way
next morning.  It ripped his scalp, and sent him
bleeding and delirious to a sick-bed from which he did
not rise for several weeks.  It was, therefore, not until
late in June that Robespierre stretched out his long
arm, and haled Dangeau from his post in Spain to Paris
and the prison of La Force.

Meanwhile there was trouble at Rancy-les-Bois.
Mr. and Mrs. Desmond, after a series of most
adventurous adventures, had arrived at Bâle, and there,
with characteristic imprudence, proceeded to narrate to
a much interested circle of friends and relatives the full
and particular details of their escape.  Rancy was
mentioned, Mlle Ange described and praised, Aline's
story brought in, Madelon's part in the drama given its
full value.  Such imprudence may seem inconceivable,
but it had more than one parallel.

In this instance trouble was not long in breeding.
Three years previously Joseph Pichon of Bâle had gone
Paris-wards to seek his fortune.  Circumstances had
sent him as apprentice to M. Bompard, the watchmaker
of Rancy's market-town.  Here he stayed two years,
years which were enlivened by tender passages between
him and Marie, old Bompard's only child.  At the end
of two years M. Pichon senior died, having lost his
elder son about six months before.  Joseph, therefore,
came in for his father's business, and immediately made
proposals for the hand of Mlle Marie.  Bompard liked
the young man, Marie declared she loved him; but the
times were ticklish.  It was not the moment for giving
one's heiress to a foreigner.  Such an action might be
unfavourably construed, deemed unpatriotic; so Joseph
departed unbetrothed, but with as much hope as it is
good for a young man to nourish.  His views were
Republican, his sentiments ardent.  By the time his
own affairs were settled it was to be hoped that public
matters would also be quieter, and then—why, then
Marie Bompard might become Marie Pichon, no one
forbidding.  Imagine, then, the story of the Desmonds'
escape coming to the ears of Joseph the Republican.
He burned with interest, and, having more than a touch
of the busybody, sat down and wrote Bompard a full
account of the whole affair.  Bompard was annoyed.
He crackled the pages angrily, and stigmatised Joseph
as a fool and a meddler.  Bompard was fat, and a good,
kind, easy man; he desired to live peaceably, and really
the times made it very difficult.  His first impulse was
to put the paper in the fire and hold his tongue.  Then
he reflected that he was not Joseph's only acquaintance
in the place.  If the young man were to write to Jean
Dumont, the Mayor's son, for instance, and then it was
to come out that the facts had been known to Bompard,
and concealed by him.  "Seigneur!" exclaimed
Bompard, mopping his brow, which had become suddenly
moist.  Men's heads had come off for less than that.
He read the letter again, drumming on his counter the
while, with a stubby, black-nailed hand; at any rate,
risk or no risk, Madelon must not be mentioned.  He
had known her from a child; there was, in fact, some
very distant connection between the families, and she
was a good, pretty girl.  Bompard was a fatherly man.
He liked to chuck a pretty girl under the chin, and see
her blush, and Madelon had a pleasant trick of it; and
then, just now, all the world knew she was expecting
the birth of her first child.  No, certainly he would
hold his tongue about Madelon.  He burnt the letter,
feeling like a conspirator, and it was just as he was
blowing away the last compromising bit of ash that
Mathieu Leroux walked in upon him.

They talked of the weather first, and then of the
prospects of a good apple year.  Then Mathieu harked
back to the old story of the fire, worked himself into a
passion over it, noted Bompard's confusion, and in ten
minutes had the whole story out,—all, that is, except his
own daughter's share in it, and at that he guessed
with an inward fury which fairly frightened poor fat
Bompard.

"Those Desaix!" he exclaimed with an oath.  "If
I 'd had your tale six weeks ago!  Now there 's only
Ange and the niece.  It's like Marthe to cheat one in
the end!"

Bompard looked curiously at him.  He did not know
the secret of Mathieu's hostility to the Desaix family.
Old Mère Anne could have told him that when Marthe
was a handsome, black-eyed girl, Mathieu Leroux had
lifted his eyes high, and conceived a sullen passion for
one as much above him as Réné de Montenay was
above her sister Ange.  The village talked, Marthe
noted the looks that followed her everywhere, and boiled
with pride and anger.  Then one day Mme de Montenay,
coldly ignoring all differences in the ranks below
her own, said:

"So, Marthe, you are to make a match of it with
young Leroux"; and at that the girl flamed up.

"If we 're not high enough for the Château, at least
we 're too high for the gutter," she said, with a
furiously pointed glance at Réné de Montenay, whose eyes
were on her sister.

Ange turned deadly pale, Réné flushed to the roots of
his hair, Madame bit her lip, and Charles Leroux, who
was listening at the door, took note of the bitter words,
and next time he was angry with his brother flung
them at him tauntingly.  Mathieu neither forgot nor
forgave them.  After forty years his resentment still
festered, and was to break at last into an open poison.

His trip to Paris had furnished him with the names
and style of patriots whose measures could be trusted not
to err on the side of leniency, and to one of these he
wrote a hot denunciation of Ange Desaix and Aline
Dangeau, whom he accused of being enemies to the
Republic, and traitors to Liberty, inasmuch as they
had assisted proscribed persons to emigrate.  No
greater crime existed.  The denunciation did its work,
and in a trice down came Commissioner Brutus Carré
to set up his tribunal amongst the frightened villagers,
and institute a little terror within the Terror at quiet
Rancy-les-Bois.

The village buzzed like a startled hive, women bent
white faces over their household tasks, men shuffled
embarrassed feet at the inn, glancing suspiciously at one
another, and all avoiding Mathieu's hard black eyes.  At
the white house Commissioner Brutus Carré occupied
Mlle Marthe's sunny room, whilst Ange and Aline sat
under lock and key, and heard wild oaths and viler
songs defile the peaceful precincts.

Up at the mill, Madelon lay abed with her newborn
son at her breast.  Strange how the softness and the
warmth of him stirred her heart, braced it, and gave her
a courage which amazed Jean Jacques.  She lay, a little
pale, but quite composed, and fixed her round brown
eyes upon her father's scowling face.  In the background
Jean Jacques stood stolidly.  He was quite ready to
strangle Mathieu with those strong hands of his, but
had sufficient wit to realise that such a proceeding would
probably not help Madelon.

"They were here!" vociferated Mathieu loudly.
"You took them in, you concealed them, you helped
them to get away.  You thought you had cheated me
finely, you and that oaf who stands there; and you
thought me a good, easy man, one who would cover
your fault because you were his daughter.  I tell you
I am a patriot, I!  If my daughter betrays the Republic
shall I shield her?  I say no, a thousand times no!"

Madelon's clear gaze never wavered.  Her arm held
her baby tight, and if her heart beat heavily no one
heard it except the child, who whimpered a little and
put groping hands against her breast.

"Then you mean to denounce me?" she said quite low.

"Denounce you!  Yes, you 're no daughter of mine!
Every one shall know that you are a traitress."

"And my baby?" asked Madelon.

Leroux cursed it aloud, and the child, frightened by
the harsh voice, burst into a lusty wailing that took
all its mother's tender hushing to still.

When she looked at her father again there was
something very bright and intent in her expression.

"Very well, my father," she said; "it is understood
that you denounce me.  Do you perhaps suppose that
I shall hold my tongue?"

"Say what you like, and be damned to you!" shouted
Mathieu.

Jean Jacques clenched his hands and took a step
forward, but his wife's expression checked him.

"I may say what I like?" she observed.

"The more the better.  Why, see here, Madelon, if
you will give evidence against Ange Desaix and her
niece, I 'll do my best to get you off."

"Why, what has Mlle Ange to do with it?" said
Madelon, open-eyed.

Leroux became speechless for a moment.  Then he
swore volubly, and cursed Madelon for a liar.

"A liar, and a damned fool!" he spluttered.  "For
now I 'll not lift a finger for you, my girl, and when
you see the guillotine ready for you, perhaps you 'll
wish you 'd kept a civil tongue in your head."

"Enough!" said Madelon sharply.  "Let us understand
each other.  If you speak, I speak too.  If you
accuse me, I accuse you."

"Accuse me, accuse me,—and of what?"

Madelon's eyes flashed.

"You have a short memory," she said; "others will
not believe it is so short.  When I say, as I shall say,
that it was you that arranged Mlle Marguerite's flight
there will be plenty of people who will believe me."  She
paused, panting a little, and Mathieu, white with
passion, stared helplessly at her.

Jean Jacques, in the background, looked from one to
the other, amazed to the point of wondering whether
he were asleep or awake.  Was this Madelon, who had
been afraid of raising her voice in her father's presence?
And what was all this about Leroux and the escape?
It was beyond him, but he opened ears and eyes to
their widest.

"There is no proof!" shouted Mathieu.

"Ah, but yes," said Madelon at once; "you forget
that Mlle Marguerite gave you her diamond shoe-buckles
as a reward for helping her and M. le Chevalier
to get away."

"Shoe-buckles!" exclaimed Mathieu Leroux, his eyes
almost starting from his head.

"Yes, indeed, shoe-buckles with diamonds in them,
fit for a princess; and they are hidden in your garden,
my father, and when I tell the Commissioner that, and
show him where they are buried, do you think that
your patriotism will save you?"

"It is not true," gasped Mathieu, putting one hand
to his head, where the hair clung suddenly damp.

"Citizen Brutus Carré will believe it," returned
Madelon steadily.

"Hell-cat!  She-devil!  You would not dare——"

"Yes, I would dare.  I will dare anything if you
push me too far, but if you hold your tongue I will
hold mine," said Madelon, looking at him over her
baby's head.  She laid her free arm across the child
as she spoke, and Leroux saw truth and determination
in her eyes.

Jean Jacques began to understand.  Eh, but Madelon
was clever.  A smile came slowly into his broad face,
and his hands unclenched.  After all, there would be
no strangling.  It was much better so.  Quarrels in
families were a mistake.  He conceived that the moment
had arrived when he might usefully intervene.

"It is a mistake to quarrel," he observed in his deep,
slow voice.

Mathieu swung round, glaring, and Madelon closed
her eyes for a moment.  There was a slight pause,
during which Jean Jacques met his father-in-law's
furious gaze with placidity.

Then he said again:

"Quarrels in families are a mistake.  It is better to
live peaceably.  Madelon and I are quiet people."

Leroux gave a short, enraged grunt, and looked again
at his daughter.  As he moved she opened her eyes,
and he read in them an unchanged resolve.

"I don't want to quarrel, I 'm sure," he said sulkily.

"We don't," observed Jean Jacques with simplicity.

"Then it is understood.  Madelon will tell no lies
about me?"

"I say nothing unless I am arrested.  If that happens,
I tell what I know."

"But you know nothing," exploded Leroux.

"The shoe-buckles," said Madelon.

Leroux stared at her silently for a full minute.  Then,
with an angrily-muttered oath, he flung out of the room,
shutting the door behind him with violence.

Jean Jacques stood scratching his head.

"Eh, Madelon," he said, "you faced him grandly.
But when did he get those shoe-buckles, and how did
you know about them?"

Madelon began to laugh faintly, with catching breath.

"Oh, thou great stupid," she panted; "did'st thou
not understand?  There never, never, never were any
buckles at all, but he thought they were there in his
garden, and it did just as well," and with that she
buried her face in the pillow and broke into passionate
weeping.

Mathieu Leroux held his tongue about his daughter
and walked softly for a day or two.  Also he took
much exercise in his garden, where he dug to the depth
of three feet, but without finding anything.

Meanwhile Brutus Carré was occupied with the forms
of republican justice.  His prisoners were to be taken to
Paris, since Justice lacked implements here, and Rancy
owned no convenient stream where one might drown the
accused in pairs, or sink them by the boat-load.

Ange Desaix faced him with a high look.  If her
ideals were tottering, their nobility still clung about her,
wrapping her from this man's rude gaze.

"I was a Republican before the Revolution," she said,
and her look drew from Citizen Carré an outburst of
venom.

"You are suspect, gravely suspect," he bellowed.

"But, Citizen—" and the frank gaze grew a little
bewildered.

"But, Citoyenne!—but, Aristocrat!  What! you
answer me, you bandy words?  Is treason so bold in
Rancy-les-Bois?  Truly it's time the wasp's nest was
smoked out.  Take her away!" and Mlle Ange went out,
still with that bewildered look.

M. le Curé came next.  There was a high flush on his thin
cheeks, and his fingers laced and interlaced continually.

When Carré blustered at him he started, leaned forward,
and tapped the table sharply.

"I wish to speak, to make a statement," he said in
a high, trembling voice.

There was a surprised silence, whilst the priest
stretched out his hand and spoke as from the pulpit.

"My children, I have been as Judas amongst you, as
Judas who betrayed his Lord.  I desire to ask pardon of
the souls I have offended, before I go to answer for my sin."

Carré stared at him.

"Is he mad?" he asked, with a brutal laugh.

"No, not mad," said M. le Curé quietly.

"Not that it matters having a crack in a head that's
so soon to come off," continued the Commissioner.
"Take him away.  When I want to hear a sermon I 'll
send for him"; and out went the curé.

On the road to Paris he was very quiet, sitting for the
most part with his head in his hands.  After they
reached Paris, Mlle Ange and Aline saw him no more.
No doubt he perished amongst the hundreds who died
and left no sign.  As for the women, they were sent to
the Abbaye, and there waited for the end.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`INMATES OF THE PRISON`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXVIII


.. class:: center medium

   INMATES OF THE PRISON

.. vspace:: 2

It was the first week in July, and heat fetid and airless
brooded over the crowded prison.  Mlle Ange drooped
daily.  To all consoling words she made but one reply—"C'est
fini"—and at last Aline gave up all attempt at
rousing her.  After all, what did it matter since they
were all upon the edge of death?

There were six people in the small, crowded cell, and
they changed continually.  No one ever returned, no one
was ever released now.

Little Madame de Verdier, stumbling in half blind with
tears, sat with them through one long night unsleeping.
In her hand she held always the blotted, ill-spelled letter
written at the scaffold's foot by her only child, a lad of
thirteen.  In the morning she was fetched away, taking
to her own death a lighter heart than she could have
borne towards liberty.  In her place came Jeanne Verdier,
ex-mistress of Philippe Égalité, she who had leaned on
the rail and laughed as the votes went up for the King's
death.  Her laughing days were over now, tears blistered
her raddled skin, and she wrung her hands continually
and moaned for a priest.  When the gaoler came for her,
she reeled against him, fainting, and he had to catch her
round the waist, and use a hard word before he could get
her across the threshold.  That evening the door opened,
and an old man was pushed in.

"He is a hundred at least, so there need be no
scandal," said the gaoler with a wink, and indeed the old
gentleman tottered to a corner and lay there peaceably
enough, without so much as a word or look for his
companions.

In a day or two, however, he revived.  The heat which
oppressed the others seemed to suit him, and after a
while he even began to talk a little, throwing out
mysterious hints of great powers, strange influences, and
what not.

Mme de Labédoyère, inveterate chatterbox, was much
interested.

"He is somebody," she assured Aline, aside.  "An
astrologer, perhaps.  Who knows?  He may be able to
tell the future."

"I have no future," said the melancholy Mme de
Vieuxmesnil with a deep sigh.  "No one can bring back
the past, not even le bon Dieu Himself, and that is all I
care for now."

The little Labédoyère shrugged her plump shoulders,
and old Mme de Breteuil struck into the conversation.

"He reminds me of some one," she said, turning her
bright dark eyes upon the old man's face.  He was leaning
against the wall, dozing, his fine-cut features pallid
with a clear yellowish pallor like dead ivory.  As she
looked his eyes opened, very blue, through the mist which
age and drowsiness hung over them.  He smiled a little
and sat up, rubbing his thin hands slowly, as if they felt
a chill even on that stifling afternoon.

"The ladies do me the honour of discussing me," he
said in his queer, level voice, from which all the living
quality seemed to have drained away, leaving it steadily
passionless.

"I was thinking I had seen you somewhere," said
Mme de Breteuil, "and perhaps if Monsieur were to tell
me his name, I should remember."

He smiled again.

"My name is Aristide," he said, and seemed to be
waiting for a sensation.  The ladies looked at one another
puzzled.  Only Mme de Breteuil frowned a moment,
and then clapped her hands.

"I have it—ah, Monsieur Aristide, it is so many
years ago.  I think we won't say how many, but all
Paris talked about you then.  They called you the
Sorcerer, and one's priest scolded one soundly if one so
much as mentioned your name."

"Yes," said the old man with a nod.

"Well, you have forgotten it, I daresay, but I came to
see you then, I and my sister-in-law, Jeanne de Breteuil.
In those days the future interested me enormously, but
when I got into the room, and thought that perhaps I
should see the devil, I was scared to death; and as to
Jeanne, she pinched me black and blue.  There was a
pool of ink, and a child who saw pictures in it."

"Oh, but how delightful," exclaimed Julie de Labédoyère.

"Not at all, my dear, it was most alarming."

"But what did he tell you?"

The old lady bridled a little.

"Oh, a number of things that would interest nobody
now, though at the time they were extremely absorbing.
But one thing you told me, Monsieur, and that was that
I should die in a foreign land, and I assure you I find it
a vastly consoling prophecy at present."

"It is true," said Aristide, fixing his blue eyes upon her.

"To be sure," she continued, "you told Jeanne she
would have three husbands, and a child by each of them,
all of which came most punctually to pass; but, Monsieur,
I fear now that Jeanne will have my prophecy as well as
her own, since she had the sense to leave France two
years ago when it was still possible, and I was foolish
enough to stay here."

The old man shook his head and leaned back again,
closing his eyes.

"What is the future to us now?" said Mme de Vieuxmesnil
in a low voice.  "It holds nothing."

"Are you so sure?" asked Aristide, and she started,
turning a little paler, but Mme de Labédoyère turned
on him with vivacity.

"Oh, but can you really tell the future?" she asked.

"When there is a future to tell," he said, stroking his
white beard with a thin transparent hand, and his eyes
rested curiously upon her as he spoke.  Something in
their expression made old Mme de Breteuil shiver a
little.

"Even now he frightens me," she whispered to Aline,
but Julie de Labédoyère had clasped her hands.

"Oh, but how ravishing," she exclaimed.  "Tell us
then, Monsieur, tell us all our futures.  I am ready to
die of dulness, and so I am sure are these ladies.  It will
really be a deed of charity if you will amuse us for an
hour."

"The future is not always amusing," said Aristide with
a slight chilly smile.  "Also," he added after a pause,
"there is no child here.  I need one to read the visions
in the pool of ink."

"The gaoler has a tribe of children," said Mme de
Labédoyère eagerly.  "I have a little money.  If I
made him a present he would send us one."

"It must be a young child, under seven years old."

"But why?"

"The eyes, Madame, must be clear.  With conscious
sin, with the first touch of sorrow, the first breath of
passion, there comes a mist, and the visions are read no
longer."

"Well, there are children enough," she answered with
a shrug.  "I have seen a little girl of about five,—Marie,
I think she is called: we will ask for her."

Almost as she spoke the door was thrown open and
the gaoler entered.  He brought another prisoner to
share the already crowded room.  If Paris streets were
silent and empty, her prisons were full enough.  This
was a pale slip of a girl, with a pitiful hacking cough.
She entered listlessly, and sank down in a corner as if
she had not strength to stand.

"The end of the journey," said Aristide under his
breath, but Mme de Labédoyère was by the gaoler's side
talking volubly.

"It is only for an hour,—and see—" here something
slipped from her hand to his.  "It will be a diversion
for the child, and for us, mon Dieu, it may save our
lives!  How would you feel if you were to find us all
dead one morning just from sheer ennui?"

"I don't know that I should fret," said the man with
a grin, and Mme de Labédoyère bit her lip.

"But you will lend us Marie," she said insistently.

"Oh, if you like, and if she will come.  It is nothing
to me, and she is not of an age to have her principles
corrupted," said the man, laughing at his own wit.

He went out with a jingle of keys, and in a few
minutes the door opened once more, and a serious-eyed
person of about five years old staggered in, carrying a
very fat, heavy baby, whose sleepy head nodded across
her shoulder.

She hesitated a moment and then came in, closed the
door, and finally sat down between Aline and Mlle Ange,
disposing the baby upon her diminutive lap.

"This is Mutius Scaevola," she volunteered; "my
mother washes and I am in charge.  He is very sleepy,
but one is never sure.  He is a wicked baby.  Sometimes
he roars so that the roof comes off one's head.
Then my mother says it is my fault, and slaps me."

"Give him to me," said Mlle Ange suddenly.

The serious Marie regarded her for a moment, and
then allowed her charge to be transferred to the stranger's
lap, where he promptly fell fast asleep.

"Come here, my child," said the old gentleman in the
corner, and Marie went to him obediently.

He had poured ink into his palm, and now held it under
her eyes, putting his other arm gently round the child.

"Look now, little one.  Look and tell us what you
see, and you, Madame," he said, beckoning to Mme de
Labédoyère, "come nearer and put your hand upon her
head."

"Do you see anything, child?"

"I see ink," said Marie sedately.  "It will make
your hand very dirty, sir.  Once I got some on my
frock, and it never came out.  I was beaten for that."

"Hush, then, little one, and look into the ink.
Presently there will be pictures there.  Then you may speak
and tell us what you see."

Silence fell on the small hot room.  Ange Desaix
rocked softly with the sleeping child.  She was the only
one who never even glanced at the astrologer and his
pupil.

Presently Marie said:

"Monsieur, there is a picture."

"What then, say?"

"A boy, with a broom, sweeping."

He nodded gravely.

"Yes, yes.  Watch well; the pictures come."

"He has made a clean place," said the child, "and on
the clean place there is a shadow.  Ah, now it turns into
a lady—into this lady whose hand is on my head.  She
stands and looks at me, and a man comes and catches her
by the neck and cuts off her hair.  That is a pity, for her
hair is very long and fine.  Why does he cut it?"

"Mon Dieu!" said Mme de Labédoyère with a sob.
She released the child and sat down by the wall, leaning
against it, her eyes wide with fear.

"You asked to see the future, Madame," said the old
man impassively.

"Can you show the past?" asked Mme de Vieuxmesnil,
half hesitatingly.

"Assuredly.  You must touch the child, and think of
what you wish to see."

She came forward and put out her hand, but drew it
quickly back again.

"No," she murmured; "it is perhaps a sin.  I am
too near the end for that, and when one cannot even
confess."

"As you will," said the old man.

"And you, Madame," he turned to Aline, "is there
nothing you would know; no one for whose welfare you
are anxious?"

She started, for he had read her thoughts, which were
full of Dangeau.  It was months now since any word
had come from him, and she longed inexpressibly for
tidings.  Lawful or unlawful, she would try this way,
since there was no other.  She laid her hand lightly on
the little girl's head, and once more the child looked into
the dark pool.

"There are so many people," she said at last.  "They
run to and fro, and wave their arms.  That makes one's
head ache."

"Go on looking," said Aristide.

"There is a lady there now.  It is this lady.  She
looks very frightened.  Some one has put a red cap on
her head.  Ah—now a gentleman comes.  He takes her
hand and puts a ring on it.  Now he kisses her."

Aline drew away.  The clamour and the crowd, the
hasty wedding, the cold first kiss, all swam together in
her mind.

"That is the past," she said in a low, strained voice.
"Tell me where he is now.  Is he alive?  Where is he?
Shall I see him again?"

She had forgotten her surroundings, the listeners, Mme
de Breteuil's sharp eyes.  She only looked eagerly at
Aristide, and he nodded once or twice, and laid her hand
again on the child's head.

"She shall look," he said, but Marie lifted weary eyes.

"Monsieur, I am tired," she said.

"Just this once more, little one.  Then you shall
sleep," and she turned obediently and bent again over
his hand.

"I do not like this picture," she said fretfully.

"What is it?"

"I do not know.  There is a platform, with a ladder
that goes up.  I cannot see the top.  Ah—there is the
lady again.  She goes up the ladder.  Her hair is cut off,
close to the head.  That is not at all pretty, but it is
the same lady, and the gentleman is there too."

"What gentleman?" asked Aline, in a clear voice.

"The same who was in the other picture, who put the
ring upon your finger and kissed your forehead.  It is
he, a tall monsieur with blue eyes.  He has no hat on,
and his arms are tied behind him.  Oh, I do not like
this picture.  Need I look any more?" and her voice
took a wailing sound.

"No, it is enough," said Aline gently.

She drew the child away and sat down by Mlle Ange,
who still rocked the sleeping baby.  Marie leaned her
head beside her brother's and shut her eyes.  Ange
Desaix put an arm about her too, and she slept.

But Aristide was still looking at Aline.

"I do not understand," he said under his breath.
"You have none of the signs, none of them.  Now
she,"—he indicated Mme de Labédoyère, "one can see
it at a glance.  A short life, and a death of violence,
but with you it is different.  Give me your hand."

He was within reach, and she put it out half mechanically.
He looked at it long, and then laid it back in
her lap.

"You have a long life still," he said, "a long, prosperous
life.  The child was tired, she read amiss.  The
sign was not for you."

Aline shook her head.  It did not seem to matter
very much now.  She was so tired.  What was death?
At least, if the vision were true, she would see her
husband again.  They would forgive one another, and
she would be able to forget his bitter farewell look.

Meanwhile Dangeau waited for death in La Force.
His cell contained only one inmate, a man who seemed
to have sustained some serious injury to the head, since
he lay swathed in bandages and moaned continually.

"Who is he?" he asked Defarge, the gaoler, and the
man shrugged his shoulders.

"One there is enough coil about for ten," he grumbled.
"One pays that he should have a cell to himself, and
another sends him milk.  It seems he is wanted to live,
since this morning I get orders to admit a surgeon to
him.  Bah!  If he knew when he was well off, he
would make haste and die.  For me, I would prefer
that to sneezing into Sanson's basket; but what would
you?  No one is ever contented."

That afternoon the surgeon came, a brisk, round-bodied
person with a light roving hazel eye, and quick,
clever hands.  He fell to his work, and after loitering a
moment Defarge went out, leaving the door open, and
passing occasionally, when he would pop his head in,
grumble a little, and pass on again.

Dangeau watched idly.  Something in the little man's
appearance seemed familiar, but for the moment he
could not place him.  Suddenly, however, the busy
hands ceased their work for a moment, and the surgeon
glanced sharply over his shoulder.  "Here, can you
hold this for me?" and as Dangeau knelt opposite
to him and put his finger to steady the bandage, he
said:

"I know your face.  Where have I seen you, eh?"

"And I know yours.  My name is Dangeau."

"Aha—I thought so.  You were Edmond's friend.
Poor Edmond!  But what would you?  He was too
imprudent."

"Yes, I was Edmond Cléry's friend," said Dangeau;
"and you are his uncle.  I met you with him once.
Citizen Goyot, is it not?"

"At your service.  There, that's finished."

"Who is he; will he live?" asked Dangeau, as the
patient twitched and groaned.

Goyot shrugged.

"He has friends who want him to live, and enemies
who are almost as anxious that he should n't die."

"A riddle, Citizen?"

"Oh, I don't know.  You may conceive, if you will,
that his friends desire his assistance, and that his enemies
desire him to compromise his friends."

"Ah, it is that way?"

"I did not say so," said Goyot.  "Good-day, Citizen,"
and he departed, leaving Dangeau something to think
about, and a new interest in his fellow-prisoner.

Next day behold Goyot back again.  He enlisted
Dangeau's services at once, and Defarge having left
them, shutting the door this time, he observed with a
keen look:

"I 've been refreshing my memory about you, Citizen
Dangeau."

"Indeed."

"Yes; you still have a friend or two.  Who says the
days of miracles are over?  You have been away a year
and are not quite forgotten."

"And what did my friends say?" asked Dangeau,
smiling a little.

"They said you were an honest man.  I said there
were n't two in Paris.  They declared you were one of
them."

"Ciel, Citizen, you are a pessimist."

"Optimists lose their heads these days," said Goyot
with a grimace.  "But after all one must trust some
one, or one gets no further."

"Certainly."

"Well, we want to get further, that is all."

"Your meaning, Citizen?"

"Mon Dieu, must I dot all the i's?"

"Well, one or two perhaps."

"I have a patient sicker than this," said Goyot
abruptly.

"Yes?"

"France," he said in a low voice.

Dangeau gave a deep sigh.

"You are right," he said.

"Of course, it's my trade.  The patient is very ill.
Too much blood-letting—you understand?  There 's a
gangrene which is eating away the flesh, poisoning the
whole body.  It must be cut out."

"Robespierre."

"Mon Dieu, Citizen, no names!  Though, to be sure,
that one 's in the air.  A queer thing human nature.  I
knew him well years ago.  You 'd have said he could n't
hurt a fly; would turn pale at the mention of an
execution; and now,—well, they say the appetite comes
with eating, and life is a queer comedy."

"Comedy?" said Dangeau bitterly.  "It's tragedy
that fills the boards for most of us to-day."

"Ah! that depends on how you take it.  Keep an
eye on the ridiculous: foster it, play for it, and you have
farce.  Take things lightly, with a turn of wit and a
playful way, and it is comedy.  Tragedy demands less
effort, I 'll admit, but for me—Vive la Comédie.  We
are discussing the ethics of the drama," he
explained to Defarge, who poked his head in at this
juncture.

"Will that mend his head?" inquired the gaoler
with a scowl.

"Ah, my dear Defarge, that, I fear, is past praying
for; but I have better hopes of my other patient."

"Who 's that?" asked the man, staring.

"A lady, my friend, in whom Citizen Dangeau is
interested.  A surgical case—but I have great hopes,
great hopes of curing her," and with that he went out,
smiling and talking all the way down the corridor.

Dangeau grew to look for his coming.  Sometimes he
merely got through his work as quickly as possible, but
occasionally he would drop some hint of a plot,—of plans
to overthrow Robespierre.

"The patient's friends are willing now," he said one
day.  "It is a matter of seizing the favourable moment.
Meanwhile one must have patience."

Dangeau smiled a trifle grimly.  Patience, when one's
head is under the axe, may be a desirable, but it is not
an easily cultivated, virtue.

Life had begun to look sweet to him once more.  The
mood in which he had suddenly flung defiance at Robespierre
was past, and if the old, vivid dreams came back
no more, yet the dark horizon began to show a sober
gleam of hope.

Every sign proclaimed the approaching fall of
Robespierre, and Dangeau looked past the Nation's temporary
delirium to a time of convalescence, when the State,
restored to sanity, might be built up, if not towards
perfection, at least in the direction of sober
statesmanship and peaceful government.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIX


.. class:: center medium

   THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

So dawned the morning of the twenty-seventh of
July, the 9th Thermidor in the new Calendar of
the Revolution.  A very hot, still day, with a veiled
sky dreaming of thunder.  Dangeau had passed a very
disturbed night, for his fellow-prisoner was worse.  The
long unconsciousness yielded at last, and slid through
vague mutterings into a high delirium, which tasked his
utmost strength to control.  Goyot was to come early,
since this development was not entirely unexpected;
but the morning passed, and still he did not appear.
By two o'clock the patient was in a stupour again, and
visibly within an hour or two of the end.  No skill could
avail him now.

Suddenly the door was thrown open, and Dangeau
heard himself summoned.

"Your time at last," said Defarge, and he followed
the man without a word.  In the corridor they met
Goyot, his hair much rumpled, his eyes bright and
restless with excitement.

"You?  Where are you going?" he panted.

"Where does one go nowadays?" returned Dangeau,
with a slight shrug.

"No, no," exclaimed Goyot.  "It's not possible.
We had arranged—your name was to be kept back."

"Bah," said Defarge, spitting on the ground.  "You
need not look at me like that, Citizen.  It is not my
fault.  You know that well enough.  Orders come, and
must be obeyed.  I 'm neither blind nor deaf.  Things
are changing out there, I 'm told, but orders are orders,
and a plain man looks no further."

Goyot caught at Dangeau's arm.

"We'll save you yet," he said.  "Robespierre is
down.  Accused this morning in Convention.  They 're
all at his throat now.  Keep a good heart, my friend;
his time has come at last."

"And mine," returned Dangeau.

"No, no,—I tell you there is hope.  It is only a
matter of hours."

"Just so."

Defarge interposed.

"Ciel, Citizens, are we to stand here all day?  Citizen
Goyot, your patient is dying, and you had better see to
him.  This citizen and I have an engagement,—yes,
and a pressing one."

An hour later Dangeau passed in to take his trial.
His predecessor's case had taken a scant five minutes,
so simple a matter had the death penalty become.

Fouquier Tinville seated himself, his sharp features
more like the fox's mask than ever, only now it was the
fox who hears the hounds so close upon his heels that he
dares not look behind to see how close they are.  Fear
does not improve the temper, and he nodded maliciously
at his former colleague.

"Name," he rapped out, voice and eye alike vicious.

With smooth indifference Dangeau repeated his
names, and added with a touch of amusement:

"You know me and my names well enough, or did
once, my good Tinville."

The thin lips lifted in a snarl.

"That, my friend, was when you were higher in the
world than you are now.  Place of abode?"

Dangeau's gaze went past him.  He shrugged his
shoulders with a faintly whimsical effect.

"Shall we say the edges of the world?" he suggested.

Fouquier Tinville spat on the floor and leaned over
the table with a yellow glitter in his eyes.

"How does it feel?" he sneered.  "The edges of the
world.  Ma foi, how does it feel to look over them into
annihilation?"

Dangeau returned his look with composure.

"I imagine you may soon have an opportunity of
judging," he observed.

At Tinville's right hand a man sat drumming on the
table.  Now he looked up sharply, exhibiting a dead
white face, where the lips hung loose, and the eyes
showed wildly bloodshot.

"But if one could know first," he said in a shaking
voice.  "When one is so close and looks over, one
should see more than others.  I have asked so many
what they saw.  I asked Danton.  He said 'The void.'  Do
you think it is that?  As man to man now, Dangeau,
do you think there is anything beyond or not?"

Dangeau recognised him with a movement of
half-contemptuous pity.  It was Duval, the actor who had
taken to politics and drink, and sold his soul for a bribe
of Robespierre's.

Tinville plucked him down with a curse.

"Tiens, Duval, you grow too mad," he said angrily.
"You and your beyond.  What should there be?"

"If there were,—Hell," muttered Duval, with shaking
lips.  Tinville banged the table.

"Am I to have all the Salpêtrière here?" he shouted.
"Have n't we cut off enough priests' heads yet?  I tell
you we have abolished Heaven, and Purgatory, and
Hell, and all the rest of those child's tales."

A murmur of applause ran round.  Duval's hand
went to his breast, and drew out a flask.  He drank
furtively, and leaned back again.

Dangeau was moving away, but he turned for a
moment, the old sparkle in his eyes.

"My felicitations, Tinville," he observed with a
casual air.

"On what?"

Dangeau smiled politely.

"The convenience for you of having abolished Hell!
It is a masterstroke.  It only remains for me to wish
you an early opportunity of verifying your statements."

"Take him out," said Tinville, stamping his foot, and
Dangeau went down the steps, and into the long
adjoining room where the prisoners waited for the
tumbrils.  It was too much trouble now to take them back
again to prison, so the Justice Hall was itself the
ante-chamber of the guillotine.  It was hot, and Dangeau
felt the lassitude which succeeds a strain.  Of what use
to bandy words with Fouquier Tinville, of what use
anything, since the last word lay with the strongest,
and this hour was the hour of his death?  It is very
difficult for a strong man, with his youth still vigorous
in every vein, to realise that for him hope and fear, joy
and pain, struggle and endurance, are all at an end,
and that the next step is that final one into the blind
and unknown pathways of the infinite.

He thought of Robespierre, out there in the tideway
fighting for his life against the inexorable waves of Fate.
Even now the water crept salt and sickly about his
mouth.  Well, if it drowned him, and swept France clean
again, what did it matter if the swirl of the tide swept
Dangeau from his foothold too?

Absorbed in thought, he took no note of his
companions in misfortune.  There was a small crowd of
them at the farther end of the room, a gendarme or two
stood gossiping by, and there was a harsh clipping
sound now and again, for the prisoners' hair was a
perquisite of the concierge's wife, and it was cut off
here, before they went to the scaffold.

The woman stood by to-day and watched it done.
The perquisite was a valuable one, and on the previous
day she had been much annoyed by the careless cutting
which had ruined a magnificent head of auburn hair.
To-day she had noted that one of the women had a
valuable crop, and she was instant in her directions for
its cutting.  Presently she pushed past Dangeau and
lifted the lid of a basket which hung against the wall.
His glance followed her idly, and saw that the basket
was piled high with human hair.  The woman muttered
to herself as her eye rested on the ruined auburn locks.
Then she took to-day's spoil, tress by tress, from her
apron, knotting the hair roughly together, and dropping
it into the open basket.  Dangeau watched her with a
curious sick sensation.  The contrast between the
woman's unsexed face and the pitiful relics she handled
affected him disagreeably, but beyond this he experienced
a strange, tingling sensation unlike anything in
his recollection.

The auburn hair was hidden now by a bunch of gay
black curls.  A long, straight, flaxen mass fell next,
and then a thick waving tress, gold in the light, and
brown in the shade, catching the sun that crossed it
for a moment, as Aline's hair had always done.

He shuddered through all his frame, and turned away.
Thank God, thank God she was safe at Rancy!  And
with that a sudden movement parted the crowd at the
other side of the room, and he looked across and saw
her.

He had heard of visions in the hour of death, but as
he gazed, a cold sweat broke upon his brow, and he knew
it was she herself, Aline, his wife, cast for death as he
was cast.  Her profile was towards him, cut sharply
against the blackened wall.  Her face was lifted.  Her
eyes dwelt on the patch of sky which an open window
gave to view.  How changed, O God, how changed
she was!  How visibly upon the threshold.  The beauty
had fallen away from her face, leaving it a mere frail
mask, but out of her eyes looked a spirit serenely touched
with immortality.  It is the look worn only by those who
are about to die, and look past death into the Presence.

It was a look that drove the blood from Dangeau's
heart; a wave of intolerable anger against Fate, of
intolerable anguish for the wife so found again, swept it
back again.  He moved to go to her, and as he did so,
saw a man approach and begin to pinion her arms,
whilst the opening of a door and the roll of wheels
outside proclaimed the arrival of the tumbrils.  In the
same moment Dangeau accosted the man, his last coin
in his hand.

"This for you if you will get me into the same cart as
this lady, and see, friend, let it be the last one."

What desperate relic of spent hope prompted his last
words he hardly knew, for after all what miracle could
Goyot work? but at least he would have a few more
minutes to gaze at Aline before the darkness blotted out
her face.

Jean Legros, stupid and red-faced, stared a moment at
the coin, then pocketed it with a nod and grunt, and fell
to tying Dangeau's arms.  At the touch of the cord an
exclamation escaped him, and it was at this moment
that Aline, roused from her state of abstraction by
something in the voice behind her, turned her head and saw
him.

They were so close together that her movement
brought them into contact, and at the touch, and as their
eyes met, anguish was blotted out, and for one wonderful
instant they leaned together whilst each heart felt the
other's throb.

"My heart!" he said, and then before either could
speak again they were being pushed forward towards
the open door.

The last tumbril waited; Dangeau was thrust into
it, roughly enough, and as he pitched forward he saw
that Aline behind him had stumbled, and would have
fallen but for fat Jean's arm about her waist.  She
shrank a little, and the fellow gave a stupid laugh.

"What, have you never had a man's arm round you
before?" he said loudly, and gave her a push that sent
her swaying against Dangeau's shoulder.  The knot
of idlers about the door broke into coarse jesting, and
the bound man's hands writhed against his bonds until
the cords cut deep into the flesh of his wrist, and the
blood oozed against the twisted rope.

Aline leaned nearer.  She was conscious only that
here was rest.  Since Mlle Ange died of the prison
fever two days ago, she had not slept or wept.  She
had thought perhaps she might die too, and be saved
the knife, but now nothing mattered any more.  He was
here; he loved her.  They would die together.  God
was very good.

His voice sounded from far, far away.

"I thought you safe; I thought you at Rancy, oh,
God!" and she roused a little to the agony in his tone,
and looked at him with those clear eyes of hers.
Through all the dreamlike strangeness she felt still
the woman's impulse to comfort the beloved.

"God, who holds us in the hollow of His hand, knows
that we are safe," she said, and at that he groaned
"Safe!" so that she fought against the weariness that
made her long just to put her head upon his shoulder
and be at peace.

"There was too much between us," she said very low.
"We could not be together here, but we could not be
happy apart.  I do not think God will take us away
from one another.  It is better like this, my dear!—it
is better."

Her voice fell on a low, contented note, and he felt
her lean more closely yet.  An agony of rebellion rent
his very soul.  To love one woman only, to renounce
her, to find her after long months of pain, to hear her
say what he had hoped for only in his dreams, and
then to know that he must watch her die.  What
vision of Paradise could blot this torture out?  Powerless,
powerless, powerless!  In the height of his strength,
and not able even to strike down the brute whose coarse
hand touched her, and that other brute who would
presently butcher her before his very eyes.

Then, whilst his straining senses reeled, he felt a jolt
and the cart stopped.  All about them surged an
excited crowd.

There was a confused noise, women screamed.  One
high, clear voice called out, "Murderers!  Assassins!"
and the crowd took up the cry with angry insistence.

"See the old man! and the girl! ma foi, she has an
angel's face.  Is the guillotine to eat up every one?"

The muttering rose to a growl, and the growl to a
roar.  To and fro surged the growing crowd, the horses
began to back, the car tilted.  Dangeau looked round
him, his heart beating to suffocation, but Aline appeared
neither to know nor care what passed.  For her the
world was empty save for they two, and for them the
gate of Heaven stood wide.  She heard the song of
the morning stars; she caught a glimpse of the glory
unutterable, unthinkable.

As the shouting grew, the driver of their cart cast
anxious glances over his shoulder.  All at once he stood
up, waving his red cap, calling, gesticulating.

A cry went up, "The gendarmerie, Henriot!  Henriot
and the gendarmes!" and the press was driven apart by
the charge of armed horsemen.  At their head rode
Henriot, just freed from prison, flushed with strong
drink, savage with his own impending doom.

The crowd scattered, but a man sprang for an instant
to the wheels of the cart, and whispered one swift
sentence in Dangeau's ear:

"Robespierre falls; nothing can save him."

It was Goyot in a workman's blouse, and as he
dropped off again Dangeau made curt answer.

"In time for France, if not for me.  Good-bye, my
friend," and then Goyot was gone and the lumbering
wheels rolled on.

On the other side of the cart, the Abbé Delacroix
prayed audibly, and the smooth Latin made a familiar
cadence, like running water heard in childhood, and kept
in some secret cell of the memory.  Beside the priest
sat old General de Loiserolles, grey and soldierly,
hugging the thought that he had saved his boy; how entirely
he was not to know.  Answering his son's name, leaving
that son sleeping, he was giving him, not the doubtful
reprieve of a day, but all the years of his natural life,
since young De Loiserolles was amongst those set free by
the death of Robespierre.

As the cart stopped by the scaffold foot, he crossed
himself, and followed the Abbé to the axe, with a simple
dignity that drew a strange murmur from the crowd.
For the heart of Paris was melting fast, and the bloodshed
was become a weariness.  Prisoner after prisoner went
up the steps, and after each dull thud announced the
fallen axe, that long ominous "ah" of the crowd went up.

Dangeau and Aline were the last, and when they
came to the steps he moved to go before her, then
cursed himself for a coward, and stood aside to let her
pass.  She looked sweetly at him for a moment and
passed on, climbing with feet that never faltered.  She
did not note the splashed and slippery boards, nor
Sanson and his assistants all grimed and daubed from
their butcher's work, but her eye was caught by the sea
of upturned faces, all white, all eyeing her, and her head
turned giddy.  Then some one touched her, held her,
pulled away the kerchief at her breast, and as the sun
struck hot upon her uncovered shoulders, a burning
blush rose to her very brow, and the dream in which
she had walked was gone.  Her brain reeled with the
awakening, heaven clouded, and the stars were lost.
She was aware only of Sanson's hot hand at her throat,
and all those eyes astare to see her death.

The hand pushed her, her foot felt the slime of blood
beneath it, she saw the dripping knife, and all at once
she felt herself naked to the abyss.  In Sanson's grip
she turned wide terror-stricken eyes on Dangeau, making
a little, piteous, instinctive movement towards him, her
protector, and at that and his own impotence he felt
each pulse in his strong body thud like a hammered
drum, and with one last violent effort of the will he
wrenched his eyelids down, lest he should look upon the
end.  All through the journey there had been as it were
a sword in his heart, but at her look and gesture—her
frightened look, her imploring gesture—the sword was
turned and still he was alive, alive to watch her die.
In those moments his soul left time and space, and hung
a tortured point, infinitely lonely, infinitely agonised, in
some illimitable region of never-ending pain.  There was
no past, no future, only Eternity and his undying soul
in anguish.  The thousand years were as a day, and the
day as a thousand years.  There was no beginning and
no end.  O God, no end!

He did not hear the crowd stir a little, and drift
hither and thither as it was pressed upon from one side;
he did not see the gendarmes press against the drift,
only to be driven back again, hustled, surrounded so
that their horses were too hampered to answer to
the spur.  Suddenly a woman went down screaming
under the horses' feet, and on the instant the crowd
flamed into fury before the agonised shriek had died
away.  In a moment all was a seething, shouting,
cursing welter of struggling humanity.  The noise of it
reached even Dangeau's stunned brain, and he said
within himself, "It is over.  She is dead," and opened
his eyes.

The scaffold stood like an island in a sea grown
suddenly wild with tempest, and even as he looked, the
human waves of it broke in a fierce swirl which welled
up and overflowed it on every side.

Sanson, his hand on the machinery, was whirled aside,
jostled, pushed, cursed.  A fat woman, with bare,
mottled arms, Heaven knows how she came on the
platform, dealt him a resounding smack on the face,
and shrieked voluble abuse, which was freely echoed.

Dangeau was surrounded, embraced, cheered, lifted
off his feet, the cord that bound his arms slashed through,
and of a sudden Goyot had him round the neck, and
he found voice and clamoured Aline's name.  The little
surgeon, after one glance at his wild eyes, pushed with
him through the surging press; they had to fight their
way, and the place was slippery, but they were through
at last, through and down on their knees by the woman
who lay bound beneath the knife that Sanson's hand
was freeing when the tumult caught him.  A dozen
hands snatched her back again now, the cords were cut,
and Dangeau's shaking voice called in her ears, called
loudly, and in vain.

"Air, give her air and room," he cried, and some
pushed forwards and others back.  The fat woman took
the girl's head upon her lap, whilst tears rained down
her crimson cheeks.

"Eh, the poor pretty one," she sobbed hysterically,
and pulled off her own ample kerchief to cover Aline's
thin bosom.  Dangeau leaned over her calling, calling
still, unaware of Goyot at his side, and of Goyot's voice
saying insistently, "Tiens, my friend, that was a near
shave, eh?"

"My wife," he muttered, "my wife—my wife is
dead," and with that he gazed round wildly, cried
"No, no!" in a sharp voice, and fell to calling her
again.

Goyot knelt on the reeking boards, caught the frail
wrist in that brown skilful hand of his, shifted his
grasp once, twice, a third time, shook his head, and took
another grip.  "No, she 's alive," he said at last, and
had to say it more than once, for Dangeau took no heed.

"Aline!  Aline!  Aline!" he called in hoarse, trembling
tones, and Goyot dropped the girl's wrist and took
him harshly by the shoulder.

"Rouse, man, rouse!" he cried.  "She's alive.  I tell
you.  I swear it.  For the love of Heaven, wake up,
and help me to get her away.  It's touch and go for all
of us these next few hours.  At any moment Henriot
may have the upper hand, and half an hour would do
our business, with this pretty toy so handy."  He
grimaced at the red axe above them, "Come, Dangeau,
play the man!"

Dangeau stared at him.

"What am I to do?" he asked irritably.

Goyot pressed his shoulder with a firm hand.

"Lift your wife, and bring her along after me.  Can
you manage?  She looks light enough."

It was no easy matter to come through the excited
crowd, but Dangeau's height told, and with Aline's head
against his shoulder he pushed doggedly in the wake
of Goyot, who made his way through the press with a
wonderful agility.  Down the steps now, and inch by
inch forward through the jostling excited people.  Up a
by way at last, and then sharp to the left where a
carriage waited, and with that Goyot gave a gasp of
relief, and mopped a dripping brow.

"Eh, mon Dieu!" he said; "get in, get in!"

The carriage had mouldy straw on the floor, and the
musty odour of it mounted in the hot air.

Dangeau complained of it sharply.

"A devil of a smell, this, Goyot!" and the little
surgeon fixed him with keen, watchful eyes, as he
nodded acquiescence.

What house they came to, or how they came to it,
Dangeau knew no more than his unconscious wife.  She
lay across his breast, white and still as the dead, and
when he laid her down on the bed in the upper room
they reached at last, she fell limply from his grasp, and
he turned to Goyot with a groan.

A soft, white-haired woman, dark-eyed and placid,—afterwards
he knew her for Goyot's housekeeper,—tried
to turn him out of the room, but he would go no farther
than the window, where he sat staring, staring at the
houses across the way, watching them darken in the
gathering dusk, and mechanically counting the lights
that presently sprang into view.

Behind him Marie Carlier came and went, at Goyot's
shortly worded orders, until at last Dangeau's straining
ears caught the sound of a faint, fluttering sigh.  He
turned then, the lights in the room dancing before his
burning eyes.  For a moment the room seemed full of
the small tongues of flame, and then beyond them he
saw his wife's eyes open again, whilst her hand moved
in feeble protest against the draught which Goyot
himself was holding to her lips.

Dangeau got up, stood a moment gazing, and then
stumbled from the room and broke into heavy sobbing.
Presently Goyot brought him something in a glass,
which he drank obediently.

"Now you will sleep," said the little man in cheerful
accents, and sleep he did, and never stirred until the
high sun struck across his face and waked him to France's
new day, and his.

For in that night fell Robespierre, cast down by the
Convention he had dominated so long.  The dawn that
found him shattered, praying for the death he had
vainly sought, awakened Paris from the long nightmare
which had been the marriage gift of her nuptials with
this incubus.

At four o'clock on the afternoon of the 10th Thermidor,
Robespierre's head fell under the bloody axe of the
Terror, and with his last gasp the life went out of the
greatest tyranny of modern times.

When Goyot came home with the news, Dangeau's
face flamed, and he put his hand before his eyes for a
moment.

Then he went up to Aline.  She had lain in a deep
sleep for many, many hours, but towards the afternoon
she had wakened, taken food, and dressed herself, all in
a strange, mechanical fashion.  She was neither to be
gainsaid nor persuaded, and Dangeau, reasonable once
more, had left her to the kind and unexciting ministrations
of Marie Carlier.  Now he could keep away no
longer; Goyot followed him and the housekeeper met
them by the door.

"She is strange, Monsieur," she whispered.

"She has not roused at all?" inquired Goyot rather
anxiously.

Marie shook her head.

"She just sits and stares at the sky.  God knows
what she sees there, poor lamb.  If she would weep——"

"Just so, just so," Goyot nodded once or twice.
Then he turned a penetrating look on Dangeau.

"Ha, you are all right again.  A near thing, my
friend, eh?  Small wonder you were upset by it."

"Oh, I!" said Dangeau, with an impatient gesture.
"It is my wife we are speaking of."

"Yes, yes, of course—a little patience, my dear
Dangeau—yes, your wife.  Marie here, without being
scientific, is a sensible woman, and it's a wonderful
thing how common-sense comes to the same conclusions
as science.  A fascinating subject that, but, as you are
about to observe, this is not the time to pursue it.
What I mean to say is, that your wife is suffering from
severe shock; her brain is overcharged, and Marie is
quite right when she suggests that tears would relieve
it.  Now, my good Dangeau, do you think you can make
your wife cry?"

"I don't know—I must go to her."

"Well, well, go.  Don't excite her, but—dear me,
Marie, how impatient people are.  When one has saved
a man's life, he might at least let one finish a sentence,
instead of breaking away in the middle of it.  Get me
something to eat, for, parbleu, I 've earned it."

Dangeau had closed the door, and stood looking at
his wife.

"Aline," he said, "have they told you?  We are
safe—Robespierre is dead."

Then he threw back his head, took a long, deep
breath, and cried:

"It is new life—new life for France, new work for
those who love her—new life for us—for us, Aline."

Aline stood by the window, very still.  At the sound
of Dangeau's voice she turned her head.  He saw that
she was smiling, and his heart contracted as he looked
at her.

Death had come so close to her, so very close, that it
seemed to him the shadow of it lay cold and still above
that strange unchanging smile; and he called to her
abruptly, with a rough tenderness.

"Aline!  Aline!"

She looked up then, and he saw then the same smile
lie deep within her eyes.  Unfathomably peaceful they
were, but not with the peace of the living.

"Won't you come to me, my dear," he said gently,
and with the simplicity he would have used to a child.

A little shiver just stirred the stillness of her form,
and she came slowly, very slowly, across the room,
and then stood waiting, and with a sudden passion
Dangeau laid both hands upon her shoulders insistently,
heavily.

He wondered had she lost the memory of the last time
he had touched and held her thus.  Then he had fought
with pride and been defeated.  Now he must fight again,
fight for her very soul and reason, and this time he must
win, or the whole world would be lost.  He paused,
gathering all the forces of his soul, then looked at her
with passionate uneasiness.

If she would tremble, if she would even shrink from
him—anything but that calm which was there, and
shone serenely fixed, like the smile upon the faces of the
dead.

It hinted of the final secret known.

"Mon Dieu!  Aline, don't look like that!" he cried,
and in strong protest his arms slipped lower, and drew
her close to his heart that beat, and beat, as if it would
supply the life hers lacked.  She came passively at
his touch, and stood in his embrace unresisting and
unresponsive.

Remembering how she had flushed at a look and
quivered at a touch, his fears redoubled, and he caught
her close, and closer, kissing her, at first gently, but in
the end with all the force of a passion so long restrained.
For now at last the dam was down, and they stood
together in love's full flowing tide.

When he drew back, the smile was gone, and the lips
that it had left trembled piteously, as her colour came
and went to each quickened breath.

"Aline," he said, very low, "Aline, my heart!  It is
new life—new life together."

She pushed him back a pace then, and raised her eyes
with a look he never forgot.  The peace had left them
now, and they were troubled to the depths, and brimmed
with tears.  Her lips quivered more and more, the breath
came from them in a great sob, and suddenly she fell
upon his breast in a passion of weeping.

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   THE END

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