The False Chevalier Part 50

One packet remained, which he had intentionally not destroyed. When the fire settled down a little he took a strong paper and cord, wrapped and sealed it, and addressed it for mailing as follows--

+--------------------------------------------+ RECORD OF PROOFS AGAINST G. LECOUR, THE PROPERTY OF MONSIEUR LOUIS R. C. DE LeRY, _Late Bodyguard of the King of France_, AT QUEBEC IN CANADA. +--------------------------------------------+

Humbly he descended the stair once more, and placing the package on the table of the sitting-room, sank again feverishly into his chair, prepared to confess all should Cyrene safely return.

A knocking sounded in the lower part of the house. He went to the door; the wicket showed a beggar woman, but on Mademoiselle Richeval mentioning her name he recognised her and let her in. His mind was so absorbed that he felt no surprise. As food was what she wanted he set before her everything in their little larder; and while she was eating like one famished he forgot her presence completely. The two once so sociable persons were for a while dumb to each other.

At length, however, having satisfied her ravenous hunger, she commenced to speak of the changes which the Revolution had brought to them and to wonder at his strange want of interest, when the noise of a mob crowding around the door was heard.

Lecour saw what might happen.

"Fly, Mademoiselle," he said; "in the courtyard there is a door on the left, take it and pa.s.s into the next house where are good people who will not abandon you. I must stay here."

He then went to the door at which pikes and gun-stocks were beating.

"Citizens, I am the only person in the house," said he, at an opening they had broken in one of the panels. "What do you wish?"

For answer several pikes were thrown in; he stepped back beyond their reach, calmly fronting the fierce faces.

"Tell me what you want. I am ready to do your will."

There was a short period of indecision outside. A muscular man in a carmagnole swinging a formidable axe pushed forward and the others fell back at his rough order.

"I arrest you, citizen Repentigny," said Hache, for it was he. "We mates of Bec and Caron that you quartered have had it in for you for a long time. I am a commissioner now, and they call this my domiciliary visit.

If you will come, I will see, on the faith of a brigand, that you get to prison safely; if not, I will see that you don't. Do you come?"

Germain calculated the seconds he had been able to save for Mademoiselle Richeval. They were ample.

He opened the door and gave himself up.

CHAPTER LI

LOVE ENDURETH ALL THINGS

Cyrene, when she found herself in darkness, had a confused idea that she was waking from a dream and lying in her bed at the house in the Rue Honore. Under that impression she drew a breath of relief. A curse from a woman's voice somewhere near by made her realise the truth; the cry of Dominique, "They have finished me!" and the circ.u.mstances of his disappearance from her side returned vividly, and her heart sickened.

But misery is like a thermometer; after reaching a particular degree it can fall but slightly lower. The death of Dominique only benumbed her brain. Her next impression was that this place in which she lay must be a dungeon, and as her eyes could make out nothing whatever in the darkness she concluded that the woman she heard must be a prisoner in an adjoining cell.

In a short time a stealthy step approached. It stopped, a wooden door swung back, and a band of greyish light showed a low room of rough beams without a window. At the door Wife Gougeon peered in, and behind her was the cheerless perspective of the shop, additionally cheerless in the grey of early morning.

"Well, wench, how do you like being a _Sans-culotte_? You slept too soft in the Old _Regime_."

Cyrene had not noticed how she had been sleeping; she now saw that her bed was a pile of straw on a box.

"Get up, you sow, and sweep my floor!" exclaimed the ragman's wife. "Get up!"

Cyrene's first instinct was to lie still in tacit disdain. The recollection of Germain, however, crossed her mind. Rather submit to anything than exasperate his enemies; so she rose, with an effort. Her limbs felt heavy.

"Out now, take this broom, you sot, and sweep the floor."

Cyrene came out and proceeded to brush aside the dust between the piles of metal. Wife Gougeon sat back on a block of wood and laughed, in immense enjoyment.

"So you were a baroness once, one of the heretofores? Well, I like baronesses to do my dirty work for me and Montmorencys for my sweeps.

You never thought the people would arrive at this, eh? You thought, you aristocrats, that you could have the fine houses and we could do all the scullery work. How do you like it? Oh, I have dirtier work than that that I will make you do. This is only the commencement. Sweep that board clean, you pig!"

The woman fumed at Cyrene's silence.

"Have you no tongue, animal? Why don't you answer when I speak? I'll teach you," and, her eyes glittering, she picked up an iron bolt and threw it at her victim. It struck Cyrene's arm, bruising it severely.

The girl winced, but continued wielding the broom as meekly as before.

"Ah," went on Wife Gougeon, "do you know what I will do with you? I will have your head sliced off. What nice necks you 'heretofores' have. I've seen many a one chopped through."

"Hush, hush, dear citizeness Gougeon," said the Abbe, appearing near by. "I brought the citizeness to you for protection; I wish to speak to her apart--say in the chamber there."

Cyrene looked at him in sorrowful relief.

"Citizeness," he said, making the greatest effort at ingratiation, "I have a few things to speak to you. You will excuse us, citizeness Gougeon?"

"Republicans do not excuse and excuse like you 'heretofores.' If it were not for the Galley, I would slice your neck to-morrow too. Go, and be quick about it, Blacklegs, while I wait to see her sweep for me again."

Cyrene staggered after him in her weakness into her chamber again, and, while she sat upon her pallet, he shut the door, took a candle down from a beam, and lit it.

"Do not mind her," he said while doing so. "She is a Jacobiness."

She looked at him as closely as her fevered sight permitted, and saw that he was shivering with excitement and his long face and downcast eyes contorting.

She sat speechless, unable to comprehend him.

"Madame Baroness," said he, "have you never wondered at your long escape from the perils of these times? When the mansions of others were burned, your house has been free from molestation; when their goods were appropriated by the nation, yours have been left intact; when all aristocrats have been sent to the guillotine, you have slept in safety.

Have you not thought this strange?"

The questioning seemed to be lost upon her, except for a nod.

"Did you never," he went on, "suspect that some power was protecting you, and ask by whose influence you were thus surrounded and your peace secured? Did you never recognise a faithfulness which relaxed at no moment, a care which was unlimited--in a word, a secret friend at the source of affairs? Madame, I was that friend."

He stopped and looked at her, his increasing excitement overcoming his stealth. She was moved, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

"I am grateful, Abbe Jude; let me say it from my heart. You have been wronged by us. We believed you were different."

At the tribute his eager look intensified itself into a piercing gaze which made her feel dread of him.

"Yes, I was that secret friend," he cried. "It was I who protected you at the sections, I struck your name from the lists of proscriptions, I diverted the marches of the patriots from your portals. Do you think all this would be done for three years without true faithfulness?"

"You have indeed proved yourself a loyal friend."

"More than that," he exclaimed; "it was more than loyalty, it was worship! Madame, believe me your name has always been to me a sacred adoration, a pa.s.sion, an affection beyond expression. Do you doubt it?