CHAPTER XVIAN UNWELCOME VISITORMlle 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.CHAPTER XVIIDISTRESSING NEWSDangeau 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.Theyall 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."CHAPTER XVIIIA TRIAL AND A WEDDINGOf 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.
CHAPTER XVI
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR
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.
CHAPTER XVII
DISTRESSING NEWS
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.Theyall 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."
CHAPTER XVIII
A TRIAL AND A WEDDING
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.