What La Boulaye may have lacked in knowledge of woman's ways he made up for by his knowledge of Cecile, and from this he apprehended that there was no time to be lost if he would carry out his purpose. Touching her dismissal of him, he permitted himself no illusions. He rated it at its true value. He saw in it no sign of relenting of generosity, but only a desire to put an end to the shame which his presence was occasioning her.
He could imagine the lengths to which the thirst of vengeance would urge a scorned woman, and of all women he felt that Cecile scorned was the most to be feared. She would not sit with folded hands. Once she overcame the first tempestuous outburst of her passion she would be up and doing, straining every sense to outwit and thwart him in his project, whose scope she must have more than guessed.
Reasoning thus, he clearly saw not only that every moment was of value, but that flight was the only thing remaining him if he would save himself as well as Ombreval. And so he hired him a cabriolet, and drove in all haste to the house of Billaud Varennes, the Deputy, from whom he sought to obtain one of the two signatures still needed by his order of release. He was disappointed at learning that Varennes was not at home—though, had he been able to peep an hour or so into the future, he would have offered up thanks to Heaven for that same Deputy's absence. His insistent and impatient questions elicited the information that probably Verennes would be found at Fevrier's. And so to Fevrier's famous restaurant in the old Palais Royal went La Boulaye, and there he had the good fortune to find not only Billaud Varennes, but also the Deputy Carnot. Nor did fortune end her favours there. She was smiling now upon Caron, as was proved by the fact that neither to Varennes nor Carnot did the name of Ombreval mean anything. Robespierre's subscription of the document was accepted by each as affording him a sufficient warrant to append his own signature, and although Carnot asked a question or two, it was done in an idle humour, and he paid little attention to such replies as Caron made him.
Within five minutes of entering the restaurant, La Boulaye was in the street again, driving, by way of the Pont Neuf, to the Luxembourg.
At the prison he encountered not the slightest difficulty. He was known personally to the officer, of whom he demanded the person of the ci-devant Vicomte, and his order of release was too correct to give rise to any hesitation on the part of the man to whom it was submitted. He was left waiting a few moments in a chamber that did duty as a guard-room, and presently the Vicomte, looking pale, and trembling with excitement at his sudden release, stood before him.
“You?” he muttered, upon beholding La Boulaye. But the Republican received him very coldly, and hurried him out of the prison with scant ceremony.
The officer attended the Deputy to the door of his cabriolet, and in his hearing Caron bade the coachman drive to the Porte St. Martin. This, however, was no more than a subterfuge to which he was resorting with a view to baffling the later possibility of their being traced. Ombreval naturally enough plied him with questions as they went, to which La Boulaye returned such curt answers that in the end, discouraged and offended, the nobleman became silent.
Arrived at the Porte St. Martin they alighted, and La Boulaye dismissed the carriage. On foot he now led his companion as far as the church of St. Nicholas des Champs, where he hired a second cabriolet, bidding the man drive him to the Quai de la Greve. Having reached the riverside they once more took a short walk, crossing by the Pont au Change, and thence making their way towards Notre Dame, in the neighbourhood of which La Boulaye ushered the Vicomte into a third carriage, and thinking that by now they had done all that was needed to efface their tracks, he ordered the man to proceed as quickly as possible to Choisy.
They arrived at that little village on the Seine an hour or so later, and having rid themselves of their conveyance, Caron inquired and discovered the way to the house of Citoyenne Godelliere.
Mademoiselle was within, and at sound of Caron's voice questioning the erstwhile servant who had befriended her, she made haste to show herself. And at a word from her, Henriette admitted the two men and ushered them into a modest parlour, where she left them with Mademoiselle.
La Boulaye was the first to speak.
“I trust that I have not kept you waiting overlong, Citoyenne,” he said, by way of saying something.
“Monsieur,” she answered him, with a look that was full of gratitude and kindliness “you have behaved nobly, and to my dying day I shall remember it.”
This La Boulaye deprecated by a gesture, but uttered no word as the Vicomte now stepped forward and bore Suzanne's hand to his lips.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, “Monsieur La Boulaye here was very reticent touching the manner in which my release has been gained. But I never doubted that I owed it to your good efforts, and that you had adopted the course suggested to you by my letter, and bought me from the Republic.”
La Boulaye flushed slightly as much at the contemptuous tone as at the words in which Ombreval referred to the Republic.
“It is not to me but to our good friend, M. La Boulaye, that you should address your thanks, Monsieur.”
“Ah? Vraiment?” exclaimed the Vicomte, turning a supercilious eye upon the Deputy, for with his freedom he seemed to have recovered his old habits.
“I have not sold you to the Citoyenne,” said La Boulaye, the words being drawn from him by the other's manner. “I am making her a present of you—a sort of wedding gift.” And his lips smiled, for all that his eyes remained hard.
Ombreval made him no answer, but stood looking from the Deputy to Suzanne in some hesitation. The expressions which his very lofty dignity prompted, his sense of fitness—feeble though it was—forbade him. And so there followed a pause, which, however, was but brief, for La Boulaye had yet something to say.
It had just come to him with a dismaying force that in the haste of his escape from Paris with the Vicomte he had forgotten to return to his lodging for a passport that he was fortunately possessed of. It was a laissez-passer, signed and left in blank, with which he had been equipped—against the possibility of the need for it arising—when he had started upon the Convention's errand to the Army of Dumouriez. Whilst on his way to Robespierre's house to secure the order of release, he had bethought him of filling in that passport for three persons, and thus, since to remain must entail his ruin and destruction, make his escape from France with Mademoiselle and the Vicomte. It was his only chance. Then in the hurry of the succeeding incidents, the excitement that had attended them, and the imperative need for haste in getting the Vicomte to Choisy, he had put the intended return to his lodging from his mind—overlooking until now the fact that not only must he go back for the valise which he had bidden Brutus pack, but also for that far more precious passport.
It now became necessary to explain the circumstances to his companions, and in explaining them the whole affair, from Robespierre's refusal to grant him the life of the Vicomte down to the means to which he had had recourse, could not be kept from transpiring. As she listened, Suzanne's expression changed into one of ineffable wonder.
“And you have done this for me?” she cried, when at last he paused, “you have ruined your career and endangered your life?”
La Boulaye shrugged his shoulders.
“I spoke over-confidently when I said that I could obtain you the Vicomte's pardon. There proved to be a factor on which I had not counted. Nevertheless, what I had promised I must fulfil. I was by honour bound to leave nothing undone that might result in the Vicomte's enlargement.”
Ornbreval laughed softly, but with consummate amusement.
“A sans-culotte with a sense of honour is such an anomaly—” he began, when Mademoiselle interposed, a note of anger sounding in her voice.
“M. d'Ombreval means to pay you a compliment,” she informed La Boulaye, “but he has such an odd way of choosing his expressions that I feared you might misunderstand him.”
La Boulaye signified his indifference by a smile.
“I am afraid the ci-devant Vicomte has not yet learnt his lesson,” said he; “or else he is like the sinner who upon recovering health forgot the penitence that had come to him in the days of sickness. But we have other matters to deal with, Citoyenne, and, in particular, the matter of the passport. Fool that I am!” he cried bitterly.
“I must return to Paris at once,” he announced briskly. “There is no help for it. We will hope that as yet the way is open to me, and that I shall be permitted to go and to return unmolested. In such a case the rest is easy—except that you will have to suffer my company as far as the frontier.”
It was Mademoiselle who accompanied him to the door.
“Monsieur,” she said, in a voice that shook with the sincere intensity of her feelings, “think me not ungrateful that I have said so little. But your act has overwhelmed me. It is so truly noble, that to offer you thanks that are but words, seems tome little short of a banality.”
“Tut!” he laughed. “I have not yet done half. It will be time to thank me when we are out of France.”
“And you speak so lightly of leaving France?” she cried. “But what is to become of you? What of your career?”
“Other careers are possible in other countries,” he answered, with a lightness he did not feel. “Who knows perhaps the English or the Prussians might be amenable to a change of government. I shall seek to induce one or the other of them to became a republic, and then I shall become once more a legislator.”
With that, and vowing that every moment he remained their chances of leaving France grew more slender, he took his leave of her, expressing the hope that he might be back within a couple of hours. Mademoiselle watched him to the garden gate, then closing the door she returned within.
She discovered her betrothed—he whom La Boulaye had called her lover—standing with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him, the very picture of surliness. He made none of the advances that one might look for in a man placed as he was at that moment. He greeted her, instead, with a complaint.
“Will you permit me, Mademoiselle, to say that in this matter you have hardly chosen the wiser course?”
“In what matter?” quoth she, at a loss to understand him.
“In the matter of my release. I advised you in my letter to purchase my freedom. Had you done so, we should now be in a position to start for the frontier—for you would have made a passport a part of your bargain. Instead of this, not only are we obliged to run the risk of waiting, but even if this fellow should return, we shall be affronted by his company for some days to come.” And the Vicomte sniffed the air in token of disgust.
Suzanne looked at him in an amazement that left her speechless for a moment. At last:
“And this is your gratitude?” she demanded. “This is all that you have to say in thanks for the discomfort and danger that I have suffered on your behalf? Your tone is oddly changed since you wrote me that piteous, pitiable letter from Belgium, M. le Vicomte.”
He reddened slightly.
“I am afraid that I have been clumsy in my expressions,” he apologised. “But never doubt my gratitude, Mademoiselle. I am more grateful to you than words can tell. You have done your duty to me as few women could.”
The word “duty” offended her, yet she let it pass. In his monstrous vanity it was often hopeless to make him appreciate the importance of anything or anybody outside of himself. Of this the present occasion was an instance.
“You must forgive me my seeming thanklessness, Mademoiselle,” he pursued. “It was the company of that sans-culotte rascal that soured me. I had enough of him a month ago, when he brought me to Paris. It offended me to have him stand here again in the same room with me, and insolently refer to his pledged word as though he were a gentleman born.”
“To whom do you refer?” quoth she.
“Ma foi! How many of them are there? Why, to this fellow, La Boulaye?”
“So it seemed, and yet I could not believe it of you. Do you not realise that your ingratitude approaches the base?”
He vouchsafed her a long, cold stare of amazement.
“Mordieu!” he ejaculated at last. “I am afraid that your reason has been affected by your troubles. You seem, Mademoiselle, to be unmindful of the station into which you have had the honour to be born.”
“If your bearing is to be accepted as a sign that you remember it, I will pray God that I may, indeed, forget it—completely and for all time.”
And then the door opened to admit the good Henriette, who came to announce that she had contrived a hasty meal, and that it was served and awaiting them.
“Diable!” he laughed. “Those are the first words of true wit that I have heard these many days. I swear,” he added, with a pleasantness that was oddly at variance with his sullen humour of a moment back, “that I have not tasted human food these four weeks, and as for my appetite—it is capable of consuming the whole patrimony of St. Peter. Lead the way, my good Henriette. Come, Mademoiselle.”
Facts proved how correct had been La Boulaye's anticipations of the course that Cecile would adopt, Within a half-hour of his having quitted the house of Billaud Varennes, she presented herself there, and demanded to see the Deputy. Upon being told that he was absent she determined to await his return.
And so, for the matter of an hour, she remained in the room where the porter had offered her accommodation, fretting at the delay, and only restrained from repairing to some other member of the Convention by the expectation that the next moment would see Varennes arrive. Arrive he did at last, when her patience was all but exhausted, and excitedly she told her tale of what had taken place. Varennes listened gravely, and cross-questioned her in his unbelief—for it seemed, indeed, monstrous that a man of La Boulaye's position should ruin so promising a future as was his by an act for which Varennes could not so much as divine a motive. But her story hung together so faithfully, and was so far borne out by the fact that Varennes himself had indeed signed such a document as she described, that in the end the Deputy determined to take some steps to neutralise the harm that might have been done.
Dismissing the girl with the assurance that the matter should have his attention, he began by despatching a courier to Robespierre at Chartres—where he knew the Incorruptible to be. That done, he resorted to measures for La Boulaye's detention. But this proved a grave matter. What if, after all, that half-hysterical girl's story should be inaccurate? In what case would he find himself if, acting upon it in the meantime, he should order Caron's arrest? The person of a Deputy was not one to be so lightly treated, and he might find himself constrained to answer a serious charge in consequence. Thus partly actuated by patriotism and the fear of Robespierre, and partly restrained by patriotism and the fear of La Boulaye, he decided upon a middle course: that of simply detaining La Boulaye at his lodging until Robespierre should either return or send an answer to his message. Thus, whilst leaving him perfect freedom of movement within his own apartments, he would yet ensure against his escape so that should Robespierre demand him he could without difficulty be produced.
To this end he repaired with a sous-lieutenant and six men to La Boulaye's house in the Rue Nationale, intending to station the soldiers there with orders not to allow the Deputy to go out, and to detain and question all who sought admittance to him. He nourished the hope that the ci-devant Vicomte might still be with La Boulaye. At the Rue Nationale, however, he was to discover that neither Deputy nor aristocrat was to be found. Brutus informed him that he was expecting the Citizen La Boulaye, but beyond that he would say nothing, and he wisely determined to hold his peace touching the valise that he had been ordered to pack and the fact that he knew the Deputy meditated leaving Paris. Brutus had learnt the value of silence, especially when those who sought information were members of the Convention.
Alarmed at this further corroboration of Cecile's story of treachery Varennes left the military at Caron's house, with orders not to allow the Deputy to again depart if in the meantime he should happen to return, whilst to every barrier of Paris he sent instructions to have La Boulaye detained if he should present himself. By these measures he hoped still to be able to provide against the possibility of Caron's seeking to leave Paris.
But Caron had been gone over an hour, and as a matter of fact, he was back again in Paris within a very little time of these orders having been issued. At the Barriere d'Enfer, although recognised, he was not molested, since the orders only, and distinctly, concerned his departure and nowise his arrival.
Thus, not until he had reached his lodgings did he realise that all was not as he had hoped. And even then it was only within doors that he made the discovery, when he found himself suddenly confronted by the sous-lieutenant, who was idling in the passage. The officer saluted him respectfully, and no less respectfully, though firmly, informed him that, by order of the Citizen-deputy Billaud Varennes, he must ask him to confine himself to his own apartments until further orders.
“But why, Citizen-officer?” La Boulaye demanded, striving to exclude from his voice any shade of the chagrin that was besetting him. “What do these orders mean?”
The officer was courtesy personified, but explanations he had none to give, for the excellent reason, he urged that he was possessed of none. He was a soldier, and he had received orders which he must obey, without questioning either their wisdom or their justice. Appreciating the futility of bearing himself otherwise, since his retreat was already blocked by a couple of gendarmes, Caron submitted to the inevitable.
He mounted leisurely to his study, and the ruin that stared him in the eyes was enough to have daunted the boldest of men. Yet, to do him justice, he was more concerned at the moment with the consequences this turn of affairs might have for Mademoiselle than with his own impending downfall. That he had Cecile to thank for his apprehension he never doubted. Yet it was a reflection that he readily dismissed from his mind. In such a pass as he now found himself none but a weakling could waste time and energy in bewailing the circumstances that had conspired to it. In a man of La Boulaye's calibre and mettle it was more befitting to seek a means to neutralise as much as possible the evil done.
He called Brutus and cross-questioned him regarding the attitude and behaviour of the soldiery since their coming. He learnt that nothing had been touched by them, and that they were acting with the utmost discreetness, taking scrupulous care not to exceed the orders they had received, which amounted to detaining La Boulaye and nothing more.
“You think, then, that you might come and go unmolested?” he asked.
“I think that I might certainly go. But whether they would permit me to return once I had left, I cannot say. So that they will let you pass out, that is all that signifies at the moment,” said Caron. “Should they question you, you can tell them that you are going to dine and to fetch me my dinner from Berthon's. As a matter of fact, I shall want you to go to Choisy with a letter, which you must see does not fall into the hands of any of these people of the Convention.”
“Give me the letter, Citizen, and trust me to do the rest,” answered the faithful Brutus.
La Boulaye searched a drawer of his writing-table for the blank passport he required. Having found it, he hesitated for a moment how to fill it in. At last he decided, and set down three names—Pierre, Francois, and Julie Michael, players, going to Strasbourg—to which he added descriptions of himself, the Vicomte, and Mademoiselle. He reasoned that in case it should ultimately prove impossible for him to accompany them, the passport, thus indited, would still do duty for the other two. They could easily advance some excuse why the third person mentioned was not accompanying them. From this it will be seen that La Boulaye was far from having abandoned hope of effecting his escape, either by his own resourcefulness or by the favour of Robespierre himself, whose kindness for him, after all, was a factor worth reckoning upon.
To Mademoiselle he now wrote as follows:
I am sending you the laissez-passer filled in for the three ofus. I am unfortunately unable to bring it myself as myabstraction of the order of release has already been discovered,and I am being detained pending the arrival of Robespierre. ButI am at my own lodging, and I have every hope that, either bythe use of my own wit, or else by the favour of my friendRobespierre, I shall shortly be able to join you. I wouldtherefore ask you to wait a few days. But should I presentlysend you word not to do so any longer, or should you hear ofevents which will render it impossible for me to accompany you,you can then set out with Ombreval, travelling under the guisedescribed in the passport, and informing any questioners thatthe other person mentioned has been forced by ill health tointerrupt his journey. As I have said, I have every hope ofwinning through my present difficulties; but should I fail todo so, my most earnest prayer will be that you may make yourway out of France in safety, and that lasting happiness may beyour lot in whatever country you may elect to settle. You maytrust the bearer implicitly, patriotic though he may appear.
He subscribed the letter with his initials, and, having enclosed the passport and sealed the package, he gave it to Brutus, with the most minute instructions touching its delivery.
These instructions Brutus carried out with speed and fidelity. He was allowed to quit the house without so much as a question, which left his plan for readmittance the greater likelihood of succeeding. In something less than an hour—for he hired himself a horse at the nearest post-house—he had delivered his letter to Mademoiselle at Choisy.
Its contents sowed in her heart the very deepest consternation—a consternation very fully shared by the Vicomte.
“Tenez!” he exclaimed, when he had read it. “Perhaps now you will admit the justice of my plaint that you did not make a simple purchase of my liberty, as I counselled you, instead of entering into this idiotic compact with that sans-culotte.”
She looked at him a moment in silence. She was suffering as it was at the very thought that La Boulaye's life might be in danger in consequence of what he had done for her. With reluctance had she accepted the sacrifice of his career which he had made to serve her. Now that it became the question of a sacrifice of life as well she was dismayed. All the wrongs that she and hers had done that man seemed to rise up and reproach her now. And so, when presently she answered the Vicomte, it was no more than natural that she should answer him impatiently.
“I thought, Monsieur, that we had already discussed and settled that?”
“Settled it?” he echoed, with a sneer. “It seems none so easy to settle. Do you think that words will settle it.”
“By no means,” she answered, her voice quivering. “It seems as if a man's life will be required for that.”
He shrugged his shoulders, and his face put on a look of annoyance.
“I hope, Mademoiselle, that you are not proposing to introduce sentimentality. I think you would be better advised to leave that vulgarity to the vulgar.”
“I do not propose to pursue the discussion at all, Monsieur,” was her chilly answer.
“The way of woman,” he reflected aloud. “Let her find that she is being worsted in argument, and she calmly tells you that she has no mind to pursue it. But, Mademoiselle, will you tell me at least what you intend?”
“What do I intend?” she questioned. “What choice have we?”
“Whenever we are asked to follow a given course, we have always the choice between two alternatives,” he theorised. “We can comply, or not comply.”
“In the present instance I am afraid your rule is inapplicable. There is no room for any alternative. We can do nothing but wait.”
She looked at him impatiently, and wearily she sank on to a chair.
“Monsieur,” she said, as calmly as might be, “I am almost distracted by my thoughts as it is. I don't know whether you are seeking to complete the rout of my senses. Let me beg of you at least not to deal in riddles with me. The time is ill-chosen. Tell me bluntly what is in your mind, if, indeed, anything.”
He turned from her peevishly, and crossed to the window. The twilight was descending, and the little garden was looking grey in the now pallid light. Her seeming obtuseness was irritating him.
“Surely, Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed at last, “it is not necessary that I should tell you what other course is open to us? It is a matter for our choice whether we depart at once. We have a passport, and—and, enfin, every hour that we remain here our danger is increased, and our chances of escape are lessened.”
“Ah!” She breathed the syllable contemptuously. “And what of La Boulaye?”
“Pooh! he says himself that he is in no great danger. He is among his fellows. Leave him to extricate himself. After all, it is his fault that we are here. Why should we endanger our necks by waiting his convenience?”
“But surely you forget what he has done for us. You are forgetting that he has rescued you from the guillotine, dragged you out of the very jaws of death. Do you think that to forsake him now would be a fair, an honest return?”
“But name of a name,” rasped the Vicomte, “does he not say that he is far from despairing? His position is not half so dangerous as ours. If we are taken, there will be an end of us. With him matters are far from being so bad. He is one of the rabble himself, and the rabble will look after its own.”
She rose impatiently.
“Monsieur, I am afraid the subject is not one that we may profitably discuss. I shall obey the voice of my conscience in the matter, and I shall wait until we hear again from La Boulaye. That is the message I am about to return him by his servant.”
The Vicomte watched her fling out of the room, and his weak face was now white with anger. He rapped out an oath as he turned to the window again.
“Mad!” he muttered, through-set teeth. “Mad as a sun-struck dog. The troubles she has lately seen have turned her head—never a difficult matter with a woman. She talks as if she had been reading Rousseau on the 'Right of man'. To propose to endanger our lives for the sake of that scum, La Boulaye! Ciel! It passes belief.”
But it was in vain that he was sullen and resentful. Suzanne's mind entertained no doubt of what she should do, and she had her way in the matter, sending back Brutus with the message that she would wait until La Boulaye communicated with her again.
That night Caron slept tranquilly. He had matured a plan of escape which he intended to carry out upon the morrow, and with confident hope to cradle him he had fallen asleep.
But the morrow—early in the forenoon—brought a factor with which he had not reckoned, in the person of the Incorruptible himself. Robespierre had returned in hot haste to Paris upon receiving Varennes' message, and he repaired straight to the house of La Boulaye.
Caron was in his dressing-gown when Robespierre was ushered into his study, and the sight of that greenish complexion and the small eyes, looking very angry and menacing, caused the song that the young man had been humming to fade on his lips.
“You, Maximilien!” he exclaimed.
“Your cordial welcome flatters me,” sneered the Incorruptible, coming forward. Then with a sudden change of voice: “What is that they tell me you have done, miserable?” he growled.
It would have been a madness on Caron's part to have increased an anger that was already mounting to very passionate heights. Contritely, therefore, and humbly he acknowledged his fault, and cast himself upon the mercy of Robespierre.
But the Incorruptible was not so easily to be shaken.
“Traitor that you are!” he inveighed. “Do you imagine that because it is yours to make high sounding speeches in the Convention you are to conspire with impunity against the Nation? Your loyalty, it seems, is no more than a matter of words, and they that would keep their heads on their shoulders in France to-day will find the need for more than words as their claim to be let live. If you would save your miserable neck, tell me what you have done with this damned aristocrat.”
“He is gone,” answered La Boulaye quietly.
“Don't prevaricate, Caron! Don't seek to befool me, Citizen-deputy. You have him in hiding somewhere. You can have supplied him with no papers, and a man may not travel out of France without them in these times. Tell me—where is he?”
“Gone,” repeated La Boulaye. “I have set him free, and he has availed himself of it to place himself beyond your reach. More than that I cannot tell you.”
“Can you not?” snarled Robespierre, showing his teeth. “Of what are you dreaming fool? Do you think that I will so easily see myself cheated of this dog? Did I not tell you that rather would I grant you the lives of a dozen aristocrats than that of this single one? Do you think, then, that I am so lightly to be baulked? Name of God? Who are you, La Boulaye, what are you, that you dare thwart me in this?” He looked at the young man's impassive face to curb his anger. “Come, Caron,” he added, in a wheedling tone. “Tell me what you have done with him?”
“I have already told you,” answered the other quietly.
As swift and suddenly as it changed before did Robespierre's humour change again upon receiving that reply. With a snort of anger he strode to the door and threw it open.
“Citizen-lieutenant!” he called, in a rasping voice.
“Here, Citizen,” came a voice from below.
“Give yourself the trouble of coming up with a couple of men. Now, Citizen La Boulaye,” he said, more composedly, as he turned once more to the young man, “since you will not learn reason you may mount the guillotine in his place.”
Caron paled slightly as he inclined his head in silent submission. At that moment the officer entered with his men at his heels.
“Arrest me that traitor,” Maximilien commanded, pointing a shaking finger at Caron. “To the Luxembourg with him.”
“If you will wait while I change my dressing-gown for a coat, Citizen-officer,” said La Boulaye composedly, “I shall be grateful.” Then, turning to his official, “Brutus,” he called, “attend me.”
He had an opportunity while Brutus was helping him into his coat to whisper in the fellow's ear:
“Let her know.”
More he dared not say, but to his astute official that was enough, and with a sorrowful face he delivered to Suzanne, a few hours later, the news of La Boulaye's definite arrest and removal to the Luxembourg.
At Brutus's description of the scene there had been 'twixt Robespierre and Caron she sighed heavily, and her lashes grew wet.
“Poor, faithful La Boulaye!” she murmured. “God aid him now.”
She bore the news to d'Ombreval, and upon hearing it he tossed aside the book that had been engrossing him and looked up, a sudden light of relief spreading on his weak face.
“It is the end,” said he, as though no happier consummation could have attended matters, “and we have no more to wait for. Shall we set out to-day?” he asked, and urged the wisdom of making haste.
“I hope and I pray God that it may not be the end, as you so fondly deem it, Monsieur,” she answered him. “But whether it is the end or not, I am resolved to wait until there is no room for any hope.”
“As you will,” he sighed wearily, “The issue of it all will probably be the loss of our heads. But even that might be more easily accomplished than to impart reason to a woman.”
“Or unselfishness, it seems, to a man,” she returned, as she swept angrily from the room.
At the Bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal stood Deputy Caron La Boulaye upon his trial for treason to the Nation and contravention of the ends of justice. Fouquier-Tinvillle, the sleuth-hound Attorney-General, advanced his charges, and detailed the nature of the young revolutionist's crime. But there was in Fouquier-Tinvillle's prosecution a lack of virulence for once, just as among La Boulaye's fellows, sitting in judgment, there was a certain uneasiness, for the Revolution was still young, and it had not yet developed that Saturnian habit of devouring its own children which was later to become one of its main features.
The matter of La Boulaye's crime, however, was but too clear, and despite the hesitancy on the part of the jury, despite the unwonted tameness of Tinvillle's invective, the Tribunal's course was well-defined, and admitted of not the slightest doubt. And so, the production of evidence being dispensed with by Caron's ready concurrence and acknowledgment of the offence, the President was on the point of formally asking the jury for their finding, when suddenly there happened a commotion, and a small man in a blue coat and black-rimmed spectacles rose at Tinvillle's side, and began an impassioned speech for the defence.
This man was Robespierre, and the revolutionists sitting there listened to him in mute wonder, for they recalled that it was upon the Incorruptible's own charge their brother-deputy had been arrested. Ardently did Maximilien pour out his eloquence, enumerating the many virtues of the accused and dwelling at length upon his vast services to the Republic, his hitherto unfaltering fidelity to the nation and the people's cause, and lastly, deploring that in a moment of weakness he should have committed the indiscretion which had brought him where he stood. And against this thing of which he was now accused, Robespierre bade the Deputies of the jury balance the young man's past, and the much that he had done for the Revolution, and to offer him, in consideration of all that, a chance of making atonement and regaining the position of trust and of brotherly affection which for a moment he had forfeited.
The Court was stirred by the address. They knew the young sans-culotte's worth, and they were reluctant to pass sentence upon him and to send him to the death designed for aristocrats and traitors. And so they readily pronounced themselves willing to extend him the most generous measure of mercy, to open their arms and once more to clasp to their hearts the brother who had strayed and to reinstate him in their confidence and their councils. They pressed Robespierre to name the act of atonement by which he proposed La Boulaye should recover his prestige, and Robespierre in answer cried:
“Let him repair the evil he has done. Let him neutralise the treachery into which a moment of human weakness betrayed him. Let him return to us the aristocrat he has attempted to save, and we will forget his indiscretion and receive him back amongst us with open arms, as was the prodigal son received.”
There was a salvo of applause. Men rose to their feet excitedly, and with arms outstretched in Caron's direction they vociferously implored him to listen to reason as uttered by the Incorruptible, to repent him and to atone while there was yet time. They loved him, they swore in voices of thunder, each seeking to be heard above his neighbour's din, and it would break their hearts to find him guilty, yet find him guilty they must unless he chose the course which this good patriot Maximilien pointed out to him.
La Boulaye stood pale but composed, his lips compressed, his keen eyes alert. Inwardly he was moved by this demonstration of goodwill, this very storm of fraternity, but his purpose remained adamant, and when at last the President's bell had tinkled his noisy judges into silence, his voice rose clear and steady as he thanked them for leaning to clemency on his behalf.
“Helas,” he ended, “words cannot tell you how deeply I deplore that it is a clemency of which I may not avail myself. What I have done I may not undo. And so, Citizens, whilst I would still retain your love and your sympathy, you must suffer me to let justice take its course. To delay would be but to waste your time the Nation's time.”
“But this is rank defiance,” roared Tinvillle, roused at last into some semblance of his habitual bloodthirstiness. “He whose heart can be so insensible to our affections merits no clemency at this bar.”
And so the President turned with a shrug to his colleagues, and the verdict was taken. The finding was “Guilty,” and the President was on the point of passing sentence, when again Robespierre sprang to his feet. The Incorruptible's complexion looked sicklier than its wont, for mortification had turned him green outright. A gust of passion swept through his soul, such as would have made another man call for the death of this defiant youth who had withstood his entreaties. But such was Robespierre's wonderful command of self, such was his power of making his inclinations subservient to the ends he had in view that he had but risen to voice a fresh appeal.
He demanded that the sentence should be passed with the reservation that the accused should have twenty-four hours for reflection. Should he at the end of that time be disposed to tell them where the ci-devant Vicomte d'Ombreval was to be found, let them reconsider his case. On the other hand, should he still continue obdurate by the noon of to-morrow, then let the sentence be consummated.
There was some demur, but Robespierre swept it fiercely aside with patriotic arguments. La Boulaye was a stout servant of the Nation, whom it must profit France to let live that he might serve her; Ombreval was a base aristocrat, whose death all true Republicans should aim at encompassing. And so he won the day in the end, and when the sentence of death was passed, it was passed with the reservation that should the prisoner, upon reflection, be inclined to show himself more loyal to France and the interests of the Republic by telling them how Ornbreval might be recaptured, he would find them still inclined to mercy and forgiveness. Allowing his eyes to stray round the Court at that moment, La Boulaye started at sight of an unexpected face. It was Mademoiselle de Bellecour, deathly pale and with the strained, piteous look that haunts the eyes of the mad. He shivered at the thought of the peril to herself in coming into that assembly; then, recovering himself, he turned to his judges.
“Citizen-President, Citizens all, I thank you; but I should be unappreciative of your kindness did I permit you to entertain false hopes. My purpose is unalterable.”
“Take him away,” the President commanded impatiently, and as they removed him Mademoiselle crept from the Court, weeping softly in her poignant grief, and realising that not so much for the President's ear as for her own had La Boulaye uttered those words. They were meant to fortify her and to give her courage with the assurance that Ombreval would not be betrayed. To give her courage! Her lip was twisted into an oddly bitter smile at the reflection, as she stepped into her cabriolet, and bade the driver return to Choisy. Caron was doing this for her. He was casting away his young, vigorous life, with all its wealth of promise, to the end that her betrothed—the man whom he believed she loved—might be spared. The greatness, the nobility of the sacrifice overwhelmed her. She remembered the thoughts that in the past she had entertained concerning this young revolutionist. Never yet had she been able to regard him as belonging to the same order of beings as herself-not even when she had kissed his unconscious lips that evening on the Ridge road. An immeasurable gulf had seemed to yawn between them—the gulf between her nobility and his base origin. And now, as her carriage trundled out of Paris and took the dusty high road, she shuddered, and her cheeks burned with shame at the memory of the wrong that by such thoughts she had done him. Was she, indeed, the nobler? By accident of birth, perhaps, but by nature proper he was assuredly the noblest man that ever woman bore.
In the Place de la Revolution a gruesome engine they called the guillotine was levelling all things, and fast establishing the reign of absolute equality. But with all the swift mowing of its bloody scythe, not half so fast did it level men as Mademoiselle de Bellecour's thoughts were doing that afternoon.
So marked was the disorder in her countenance when she reached Choisy that even unobservant Ombreval whom continuous years of self-complacency had rendered singularly obtuse—could not help but notice it, and—fearing, no doubt, that this agitation might in some way concern himself—he even went the length of questioning her, his voice sounding the note of his alarm.
“It is nothing,” she answered, in a dejected voice. “At least, nothing that need cause you uneasiness. They have sentenced La Boulaye to death,” she announced, a spasm crossing her averted face.
He took a deep breath of relief.
“God knows they've sentenced innocent men enough. It is high time they began upon one another. It augurs well-extremely well.”
They were alone in Henriette's kitchen; the faithful woman was at market. Mademoiselle was warming herself before the fire. Ombreval stood by the window. He had spent the time of her absence in the care of his clothes, and he had contrived to dress himself with some semblance of his old-time elegance which enhanced his good looks and high-born air.
“You seem to utterly forget, Monsieur, the nature of the charge upon which he has been arraigned,” she said, in a tired voice.
“Why, no,” he answered, and he smiled airily; “he was sufficiently a fool to be lured by the brightest eyes in France into a service for their mistress. My faith! He's not the first by many a thousand whom a woman's soft glances have undone—”
“The degree in which you profit by the service he is doing those bright eyes, appears singularly beneath the dignity of your notice.”
“What a jester you are becoming, ma mie,” he laughed and at the sound she shuddered again and drew mechanically nearer to the fire as though her shuddering was the result of cold.
“It is yet possible that he may not die,” she said almost as if speaking to herself. “They have offered him his liberty, and his reinstatement even—upon conditions.”
“How interesting!” he murmured nonchalantly. “They have an odd way of dispensing justice.”
“The conditions imposed are that he shall amend the wrong he has done, and deliver up to the Convention the person of one ci-devant Vicomte d'Ombreval.”
“My God!”
It was a gasp of sudden dismay that broke from the young nobleman. The colour swept out of his face, and his eyes dilated with horror. Watching him Suzanne observed the sudden change, and took a fierce joy in having produced it.
“It interests you more closely now, Monsieur?” she asked.
“Suzanne,” he cried, coming a step nearer, and speaking eagerly; “he knows my whereabouts. He brought me here himself. Are you mad, girl, that you can sit there so composedly and tell me this?”
“What else would you have me do?” she inquired.
“Do? Why, leave Choisy at once. Come; be stirring. In God's name, girl, bethink you that we have not a moment to lose. I know these Republicans, and how far they are to be trusted. This fellow would betray me to save his skin with as little compunction as—”
“You fool!” she broke in, an undercurrent of fierce indignation vibrating through her scorn. “What are you saying? He would betray you? He?” She tossed her arms to Heaven, and burst into a laugh of infinite derision. “Have no fear of that, M. le Vicomte, for you are dealing with a nature of a nobility that you cannot so much as surmise. If he were minded to betray you, why did he not do so to-day, when they offered him his liberty in exchange for information that would lead to your recapture?”
“But although he may have refused to-day,” returned the Vicomte frenziedly, “he may think better of it to-morrow-perhaps even tonight. Ciel! Think of the risk we run; already it may be too late. Oh, why,” he demanded reproachfully, “why didn't you listen to me when, days ago, I counselled flight?”
“Because it neither was, nor is, my intention to fly.”
“What?” he cried, and, his jaw fallen and his eyes wide, he regarded her. Then suddenly he caught her by the arm and shook her roughly. “Are you mad?” he cried, in a frenzy of anger and fear. “Am I to die like a dog that a scum of a Republican may save his miserable neck? Is this canaille of a revolutionist to betray me to his rabble Tribunal?”
“Already have I told you that you need fear no betrayal.”
“Need I not?” he sneered. “Ma foi! but I know these ruffians. There is not an ounce of honour in the whole National Convention.”
“Fool!” she blazed, rising and confronting him with an anger before which he recoiled, appalled. “Do you dare to stand there and prate of honour—you? Do you forget why he stood his trial? Do you forget why he is dying, and can you not see the vile thing that you are doing in arguing flight, that you talk of honour thus, and deny his claim to it? Mon Dieu! Your effrontery stifles me! La Boulaye was right when he said that with us honour is but a word—just so much wind, and nothing more.”
He stared at her in uncomprehending wonder. He drew away another step. He accounted her mad, and, that he might humour her, he put by his own fears for the moment—a wonderful unselfishness this in the most nobly-born Vicomte d'Ombreval.
“My poor Suzanne,” he murmured. “Our trouble has demoralised your understanding. You take a false view of things. You do not apprehend the situation.”
“In God's name, be silent!” she gasped.
“But the time is not one for silence,” he returned.
“So I had thought,” quoth she. “Yet since you can be silent and furtive in other matters, I beg that you will be silent in this also. You talk in vain, Monsieur, in any case. For I am not minded to leave Choisy. If you urge me further I shall burn our passport.”
And with that she left him, to seek the solitude of her own room. In a passion of tears she flung herself upon the little bed, and there she lay, a prey to such an anguish as had never touched her life before.
And now, in that hour of her grief, it came to her—as the sun pierces the mist—that she loved La Boulaye; that she had loved him, indeed, since that night at Boisvert, although she had stifled the very thought, and hidden it even from herself, as being unworthy in one of her station to love a man so lowly-born as Caron. But now, on the eve of his death, the truth would no longer be denied. It cried, perchance, the louder by virtue of the pusillanimity of the craven below stairs in whose place Caron was to die; but anyhow, it cried so loudly that it overbore the stern voice of the blood that had hitherto urged her to exclude the sentiment from her heart. No account now did she take of any difference in station. Be she nobler a thousand times, be he simpler a thousand times, the fact remained that she was a woman, he a man, and beyond that she did not seek to go.
Low indeed were the Lilies of France when a daughter of the race of their upholders heeded them so little and the caste they symbolised.
Henriette came to her that afternoon, and, all ignorant of the sources of her grief, she essayed to soothe and comfort her, in which, at last, she succeeded.
In the evening Ombreval sent word that he wished to speak to her—and that his need was urgent. But she returned him the answer that she would see him in the morning. She was indisposed that evening, she added, in apology.
And in the morning they met, as she had promised him. Both pale, although from different causes, and both showing signs of having slept but little. They broke their fast together and in silence, which at last he ended by asking her whether the night had brought her reflection, and whether such reflection had made her appreciate their position and the need to set out at once.
“It needed no reflection to make me realise our position better than I did yesterday,” she answered. “I had hoped that it would have brought you to a different frame of mind. But I am afraid that it has not done so.”
“I fail to see what change my frame of mind admits of,” he answered testily.
“Have you thought,” she asked at last, and her voice was cold and concentrated, “that this man is giving his life for you?”
“I have feared,” he answered, with incredible callousness, “that to save his craven skin he might elect to do differently at the last moment.”
She looked at him in a mighty wonder, her dark eyes open to their widest, and looking black by the extreme dilation of the pupils. So vast was her amazement at this unbounded egotism that it almost overruled her disgust.
“You cast epithets about you and bestow titles with a magnificent unconsciousness of how well they might fit you.”
“Ah? For example?”
“In calling this man a craven, you take no thought for the cowardice that actuates you into hiding while he dies for you?”
“Cowardice?” he ejaculated. Then a flush spread on his face. “Ma foi, Mademoiselle,” said he, in a quivering voice, “your words betray thoughts that would be scarcely becoming in the Vicomtesse d'Ombreval.”
“That, Monsieur, is a point that need give you little thought. I am not likely to become the Vicomtesse.”
He bestowed her a look of mingling wonder and anger. Had he, indeed, heard her aright? Did her words imply that she disdained the honour?
“Surely,” he gasped, voicing those doubts of his, “you do not mean that you would violate your betrothal contract? You do not—”
“I mean, Monsieur,” she cut in, “that I will give myself to no man I do not love.”
“Your immodesty,” said he, “falls in nothing short of the extraordinary frame of mind that you appear to be developing in connection with other matters. We shall have you beating a drum and screeching the Ca ira in the streets of Paris presently, like Mademoiselle de Mericourt.”
She rose from the table, her face very white, her hand pressing upon her corsage. A moment she looked at him. Then:
“Do not let us talk of ourselves,” she exclaimed at last. “There is a man in the Conciergerie who dies at noon unless you are forthcoming before then to save him. He himself will not betray you because he—No matter why, he will not. Tell me, Monsieur, how do you, who account yourself a man of honour above everything, intend to deal with this situation?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Once he is dead and done with—provided that he does not first betray me—I trust that, no longer having this subject to harp upon, you will consent to avail yourself of our passport, and accompany me out of France.”
“Honour does not for instance, suggest to you that you should repair to the Conciergerie and take the place that belongs to you, and which another is filling?”
A sudden light of comprehension swept now into his face.
“At last I understand what has been in your mind since yesterday, what has made you so odd in your words and manner. You have thought that it was perhaps my duty as a man of honour to go and effect the rescue of this fellow. But, my dear child, bethink you of what he is, and of what I am. Were he a gentleman—my equal—my course would stand clearly defined. I should not have hesitated a moment. But this canaille! Ma foi! let me beg of you to come to your senses. The very thought is unworthy in you.”
“I understand you,” she answered him, very coldly. “You use a coward's arguments, and you have the effrontery to consider yourself a man of honour—a nobleman. I no longer marvel that there is a revolution in France.”
She stood surveying him for a moment, then she quietly left the room. He stared after her.
“Woman, woman!” he sighed, as he set down his napkin and rose in his turn.
His humour was one of pitying patience for a girl that had not the wit to see that to ask him—the most noble d'Ombreval—to die that La Boulaye might live was very much like asking him to sacrifice his life to save a dog's.