The Light That Lures Part 31

"And afterward, I hope," Latour returned.

The smile faded from Latour's face as he went back into his room, and an expression of perplexity took its place. This was a new and unexpected danger. Probably he was honest, but it was hardly likely that Barrington had told the whole truth to his servant. After a little while spent in thought and calculation, Latour went upstairs to the rooms above his own. He knocked at the door, then turned the key and entered.

Pauline Vaison showed no pleasure at the visit, but there was unmistakable relief. It was quite evident that she half expected a worse enemy.

"Have you come to release me, citizen?" she asked, doing her utmost to appear indifferent.

"You are only a prisoner for your own safety."

"You have already said so, but I cannot understand of what importance I am to the State."

"Mademoiselle, I was a little rough with you when you were first brought here," said Latour. "I believed you were a party to a plot, to defeat which you were smuggled out of the Abbaye Prison. You told me a story which, frankly, I did not believe, but from further knowledge I am inclined to alter my opinion. Your story was this, correct me if I am wrong in any detail: You went one morning to visit Citizen Bruslart, he was out and you waited for him, you have done the same before. The house was suddenly invaded and you were arrested as an aristocrat, one Mademoiselle Jeanne St. Clair. You protested, but you were not believed.

Is that so?"

"I was laughed at and insulted," said Pauline.

"Citizen Bruslart is a friend of yours?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever heard that he was to marry Jeanne St. Clair?"

"Whatever he once intended, I have the best reason for knowing that he has changed his mind. Lucien Bruslart is to marry me."

Latour showed no surprise. "Have you ever seen this Jeanne St. Clair?"

he asked.

"Never."

"You were not voluntarily there that day in her place, so that she might escape?"

"No. I am a patriot and hate all aristocrats. I am woman enough to hate this one particularly since Lucien once cared for her."

"When one's life is at stake, it is easy to lie if a lie will be useful, but I believe you, citizeness," said Latour. "I wish to be your friend, that kind of friend who is honest even if honesty gives pain. First, then, it is absolutely necessary that you remain here in hiding for a little while. The mob which carried you to prison knows you have escaped. You are being hunted for. So beautiful a woman cannot pa.s.s unnoticed. You would be recognized, and since you are still believed to be Mademoiselle St. Clair, I doubt not the nearest lantern would be your destination."

Pauline turned pale. "But, citizen--"

"Believe me, you are perfectly safe here," said Latour. "In a few days the people will know that they made a mistake, and you will be a heroine."

"I will stay here," she said. "You are sure the woman who brings my food and looks after these rooms will not betray me?"

"I am certain of that. She believes you are very dear to me, and she is mine body and soul. Now I come to the second point. It is known that this aristocrat is, or was, in Paris. It is certain that Lucien Bruslart knew this; it is almost certain that he has found her a safe hiding-place. That makes you angry, but there is something more. He knew that Jeanne St. Clair was supposed to have been arrested in his apartment, knew that a mistake had been made, but he has taken no steps to put that mistake right. Is it not possible, even probable, that he knows you were arrested in her place, and that it has suited his plans to remain silent?"

Pauline sprang from her chair, her eyes blazing, her little hands clinched, her whole frame vibrating with the l.u.s.t for revenge.

"If I thought--"

"Citizeness, I am your friend," said Latour. "We will find out. At present, Lucien Bruslart is not to be found. For three days, ever since your escape, mark you, he has not been near his apartment."

"You shall help me," said Pauline, savagely. "I will not yet believe him false, but if he is, he shall pay for it. I should laugh to see his neck under the knife."

"You let me into a secret, citizeness, the greatness of your love."

"Great love like mine means hatred if it is scorned," she said; and then she added quickly, "But he may have got safely away from Paris."

There was in her att.i.tude that sudden savagery which a cat shows at the prospect of being robbed of its prey.

"He has not left Paris," said Latour.

"Even if he had, I should find him," she said.

Latour left her and returned to his own rooms.

"This woman will find him, once she is let loose," he muttered. "I can almost pity Citizen Bruslart, thrice d.a.m.ned villain that he is. And Barrington? I must see Barrington."

CHAPTER XVIII

DR. LEGRAND'S ASYLUM

The Rue Charonne was a long street extending toward the outer limits of the city, and while at one end, near the Chat Rouge Tavern, it was a busy thoroughfare with crowded Streets on either side of it, at the other end it was quiet, and almost deserted in the evenings. The houses were less closely packed, and there were walls which trees overhung, telling of pleasant and shady gardens.

Behind such a wall the pa.s.ser-by had a glimpse of the upper windows and steep roof of a house of considerable size. On one side of it stretched a garden, on the other some outbuildings joined it to another house which had nothing to do with it, but was one of a block of rather old houses which faced the street.

This house, in its pleasant garden, was, as every one knew, a private asylum and sanatorium conducted by Dr. Legrand. He had come there half a dozen years ago, and for some time there had been only a few inmates, not dangerously insane, but unfit to be at large, and two or three others who had retired into this retreat to end their days in peace. In the last few months, however, the number of residents had vastly increased. Certainly every room in the house must be occupied, the larger rooms probably divided into two or three, the neighbors argued, and most of the inmates did not appear to be insane. It was not a time to busy one's self about other people's affairs, it was much safer neither to gossip nor to listen to gossip; so to many persons the riddle of Monsieur Legrand's sudden prosperity remained unsolved.

Yet many people understood the riddle, and were not slow to profit by it. This house, although one of the best known, was not the only one of its kind to be found in Paris. Legrand was a man of business as well as a doctor, a better man of business than he was a doctor, and perceived, almost by a stroke of genius, how he might profit by the Revolution. To many a revolutionary leader gold was better than the head of an aristocrat, although by that curious twist of conscience which men can so easily contrive for themselves, direct bribery was not to be thought of. Dr. Legrand seemed to thoroughly understand this twisted and diseased conscience, and had a remedy to offer. What persuasion he used, what proportion of his exorbitant fees found its way into other pockets, cannot be said, it was a secret he locked up in his own soul, but it soon became known that aristocrats, fortunate enough to be prisoners in this house in the Rue Charonne, were safe so long as the fees were paid.

The agents of the Public Prosecutor never came there for food for the guillotine. If the fees were not paid, it invariably meant that some ill turn of fortune, which Legrand was quite unable to explain, necessitated the speedy removal of the delinquent to the Abbaye, to Sainte Pelagie, or one of the other prisons where their days were almost certain to be few.

A round-faced man, with generosity beaming in his eyes, was Dr. Legrand.

His prisoners, or guests as he preferred to call them, were free to roam the house or the grounds at their will; if the table he kept was not liberal, a certain etiquette was indulged in which did something to cover the parsimony, and the insane inmates who remained in the house were pushed out of the way into odd corners as much as possible.

Into the doctor's study one morning there had come a man and a woman.

"I have come as arranged," said the man. "This is the lady."

Legrand bowed low, and appeared to overflow with benevolence.

"I am happy to welcome such a guest," he said. "There are certain formalities, and then you are as safe, mademoiselle, as you could be at Beauvais."

So it was that Mademoiselle St. Clair came to be a guest at the house in the Rue Charonne, brought there for safety by Lucien Bruslart. She had been there a week when, not far away, Richard Barrington had been obliged to run for his life, and with the help of a man, whose ident.i.ty the dark entry concealed, had jumped into safety. Of this she knew nothing; she was as ignorant of what was pa.s.sing in the city as though hundreds of miles separated her from it. Lucien had found her a safe retreat, and the time was not so heavy on her hands as she had expected.

Although she chanced upon no intimate friends in Dr. Legrand's house, she met several acquaintances, men and women she had known something of before the flight to Beauvais. They had much to talk of in the day, and in the evenings they sang and danced. If care was heavy upon some of them, smiling faces were made to mask the fact. Sat.u.r.day was a day of apprehension, a day of which the ending was greeted with a sigh of relief. It was the day for paying fees. Some the inmates paid their own, their purses refilled by friends who were free; the fees of many were paid direct to the doctor by their friends. This was the arrangement in Mademoiselle St. Clair's case. Lucien had told her that it would be the most satisfactory way, and she had given him power to draw on her money for the purpose. He had a special agreement with Legrand, he said, for Jeanne was there on a different footing from the other guests. He hinted too that Legrand was under such obligations to him that any favor he asked was practically a command. It was not until the second Sat.u.r.day had pa.s.sed that Jeanne understood all that the payment of these fees meant. At the table that night there were two empty places, a man's and a woman's. She asked her neighbor, an elderly Abbe, who had lived well all his life until he came to the Rue Charonne and was forever grumbling at the extortion practiced, what had become of them.

"Removed to another prison, mademoiselle. I did not hear which."