A DANGEROUS ACQUAINTANCE
It was in April that Fate began to concern herself with Mlle de
Rochambeau once more. It was a day of spring's first exquisite
sweetness--air like new-born life sparkling with wayward smiles, as the
hurrying sunbeams glanced between one white cloud and the next; scent of
all budding blossoms, and that good smell of young leafage and the wet,
fecund earth.
On such a day, any heart, not crushed quite dumb and dry, must needs
sparkle a little too, tremble a little with the renewal of youth, and
sing a little because earth's myriad voices call for an echo.
Aline put on her worn print gown with a smile, and twisted her hair with
a little more care than usual. After all, she was young, time passed,
and life held sunshine, and the spring. She sang a little country air
as she passed to and fro in the narrow room.
Outside it was delicious. Even in the dull street where she took her
place in the queue the air smelled of young flowering things, and
touched her cheeks with a soft, kissing breath, that brought the tender
colour into them. Under the bright cerulean sky her eyes took the shade
of dark forget-me-nots.
It was thus that Hebert saw her for the first time--one of Fate's
tricks--for had he passed on a dull, rainy, day, he would have seen
nothing but a pale, weary girl, and would have gone his way unnoticing,
and unremembered, but to-day that spring bloom in the girl's heart
seemed to have overflowed, and to sweeten all the air around her. The
sparkle of the deep, sweet, Irish eyes met his cold, roving glance, and
of a sudden changed it to an ugly, intent glitter. He passed slowly by,
then paused, turned, and passed again.
When he went by for the second time, Aline became aware of his presence.
Before, he had been one of the crowd, and she an unnoticed unit in it,
but now, all at once, his glance seemed to isolate her from the women
about her, and to set her in an insulting proximity to himself.
She looked down, coldly, and pressed slowly forward. After what seemed
like a very long time, she raised her eyes for a moment, only to
encounter the same fixed, insolent stare, the same pale smile of thick,
unlovely lips.
With an inward shudder she turned her head, feeling thankful that the
queue was moving at a good rate, and that the time of waiting was nearly
over. It was not until she had secured her portion that she ventured to
look round again, and, to her infinite relief, the coast was clear.
With a sigh of thankfulness she turned homewards, plunging her thoughts
for cleansing into the fresh loveliness of the day.
Suddenly in her ear a smooth, hateful voice:
"Why do you hurry so, Citoyenne?"
She did not look up, but quickened her pace.
"But, Citoyenne, a word--a look?"
Hebert's smile broadened, and he slipped a dexterous arm about the slim
waist, and bent to catch the blue glance of her eyes. Experience taught
him that she would look up at that. She did, with a flame of contempt
that he thought very becoming. Blue eyes were apt to prove insipid when
raised, but the critic in him acknowledged these as free from fault.
"Citizen!" she exclaimed, freeing herself with an unexpectedly strong
movement. "How dare you! Oh, help me, Louison, help me!"
In the moment that he caught her again she had seen the small, wiry
figure of Jean Michel's wife turn the corner.
"Louison, Louison Michel!" she called desperately.
Next moment Hebert was aware of some one, under-sized and shrivelled
looking, who whirled tempestuously upon him, with an amazing flow of
words.
"Oh, my Ste. Genevieve! And is a young girl not to walk unmolested to
her home. Bandit! assassin! tyrant! pig! devil! species of animal, go
then--but on the instant--and take that, and that, to remember an honest
woman by,"--the first "that" being a piece of his hair torn forcibly
out, and thrown into his perspiring face, and the second, a most
superlative slap on the opposite cheek.
He was left gasping for breath and choking with fury, whilst the
whirlwind departed with as much suddenness as it had come, covering the
girl's retreat with shaken fist, and shrill vituperation.
After a moment he sent a volley of curses in her wake. "Fury!
Magaera!" he muttered. "So that is Jean Michel's wife! If she were
mine, I 'd wring her neck."
He thought of his meek wife at home, and laughed unpleasantly.
"For the rest, she has done the girl no good by interfering." This was
unfortunately the case. Hebert's eye had been pleased, his fancy taken;
but a few passing words, a struggle may be, ending in a kiss, had been
all that was in his thought. Now the bully in him lifted its head,
urging his jaded appetite, and he walked slowly after the women until he
saw Mademoiselle leave her companion, and enter Rosalie's shop. An ugly
gleam came into his eyes--so this was where she lived! He knew Rosalie
Leboeuf by sight and name; knew, too, of her cousinship with his former
mistress, Therese Marcel, and he congratulated himself venomously as he
strolled forward and read the list of occupants which, as the law
demanded, was fixed on the front of the house at a distance of not more
than five feet from the ground:
"Rosalie Leboeuf, widow, vegetable seller, aged forty-six. Marie Roche,
single, seamstress, aged nineteen. Jacques Dangeau, single, avocat, aged
twenty-eight,"--and after the last name an additional notice--"absent on
business of the Convention."
Hebert struck his coarse hands together with an oath. Dangeau--Dangeau,
now it came back to him. Dangeau was infatuated with some girl, Therese
had said so. He laughed softly, for Therese had gone into one of her
passions, and that always amused him. If it were this girl? If it
were--if it only were, why, what a pleasure to cut Dangeau out, and to
let him find on his return that the bird had flown to a nest of Hebert's
feathering.
There might be even more in it than that. The girl was no common
seamstress; pooh--he was not stupid--he could see as far into a brick
wall as others. Even at the first glance he had seen that she was
different, and when her eyes blazed, and she drew herself from his
grasp, why, the aristocrat stood confessed. Anger is the greatest
revealer of all.
Madame la Roturiere may dress her smiling face in the mode of Mme
l'Aristocrate; may tune her company voice to the same rhythm; but put
her in a passion, and see how the mud comes boiling up from the depths,
and how the voice so smooth and suave just now, rings out in its native
bourgeois tones.
Hebert knew the difference as well as another, and his thoughts were
busy. Aristocrat disguised, spelled aristocrat conspiring, and a
conspiring aristocrat under the same roof as Jacques Dangeau, what did
that spell?
He rubbed his pale fat hands, where the reddish hair showed sickly, and
strolled away thinking wicked thoughts. Plots were the obsession of the
day, and, to speak the truth, there were enough and to spare, but
patriot eyes were apt to see double, and treble, when drunk with
enthusiasm, and to detect a conspirator when there was only a victim.
Plots which had never existed gave hundreds to the knife, and the
populace shouted themselves into a wilder delirium.
Did the price of bread go up? Machinations of Pitt in England. Did two
men quarrel, and blows pass? "Monarchist!" shouted the defeated one, and
presently denounced the other.
Had a woman an inconvenient husband, why, a cry of "Austrian Spy!" and
she might be comfortably rid of him for ever.
Evil times for a beautiful, friendless girl upon whom gross Hebert cast
a wishful eye!
He walked into the shop next day, and accosted Rosalie with Republican
sternness of manner.
"Good-day, Citoyenne Leboeuf."
Rosalie was fluttered. Her nerves were no longer quite so reliable as
they had been. Madame Guillotine's receptions were disturbing them, and
in the night she would dream horribly, and wake panting, with her hands
at her fat throat.
"Citizen Hebert," she murmured.
He bent a cold eye upon her, noting a beaded brow.
"You have a girl lodging here--Marie Roche?"
"Assuredly, Citizen."
"I must speak to her alone."
Rosalie rallied a little, for Hebert had a certain reputation, and
Louison had not held her tongue.
"I will call her down," she said, heaving her bulky form from its place.
"No, I will go up," said Hebert, still with magisterial dignity.
"Pardon me, Citizen Deputy, she shall come down."
"It is an affair of State. I must speak privately with her," he
blustered.
Rosalie's eyes twinkled; her nerves were steadying. They had begun to
require constant stimulation, and this answered as well as anything
else.
"Bah," she said. "I shall not listen to your State secrets. Am I an
eavesdropper, or inquisitive? Ask any one. That is not my character.
You may take her to the farther end of the shop, and speak as low as you
please, but, she is a young girl, this is a respectable house, and see
her alone in her room you shall not, not whilst she is under my care."
"That privilege being reserved for my colleague, Citizen Dangeau,"
sneered Hebert.
"Tchtt," said Rosalie, humping a billowy shoulder--"the girl is virtuous
and hard-working, too virtuous, I dare say, to please some people. Yes,
that I can very well believe," and her gaze became unpleasantly
pointed--"Well, I will call her down."
She moved to the inner door as she spoke, and called up the stair:
"Marie! Marie Roche! Descend then; you are wanted."
Hebert stood aside with an ill grace, but he was quite well aware that
to insist might, after yesterday's scene, bring the whole quarter about
his ears, and effectually spoil the ingenious plans he was revolving in
his mind.
He moved impatiently as Mademoiselle delayed, and, at the sound of her
footstep, started eagerly to meet her.
She came in quite unsuspiciously, looking at Rosalie, and at first
seeing no one else. When Hebert's movements brought him before her, she
turned deadly white, and a faintness swept over her. She caught the
door, fighting it back, till it showed only in that change of colour,
and a rather fixed look in the dark blue eyes.
Hebert checked a smile, and entrenched himself behind his office.
"You are Marie Roche, seamstress?"
"Certainly, Citizen."
"Father's and mother's names?"
"By what right do you question me?" the voice was icy with offence, and
Rosalie stirred uneasily.
"It is the Citizen Deputy Hebert; answer him," she growled--and Hebert
commended her with a look.
Really this was amusing--the girl had spirit as well as beauty.
Decidedly she was worth pursuing.
"Father's and mother's names?" he repeated.
Mademoiselle bit her lip, and gave the names she had already given when
she took out her certificate of Citizenship.
They were those of her foster-parents, and had she not had that
rehearsal, she might have faltered, and hesitated. As it was, her
answer came clear and prompt.
Hebert scowled.
"You are not telling the truth," he observed in offensive tones,
expecting an outburst, but Mlle de Rochambeau merely looked past him
with an air of weary indifference.
"I am not satisfied," he burst out. "If you had been frank and open,
you would have found me a good friend, but I do not like lies, and you
are telling them. Now I am not a safe person to tell lies to, not at
all--remember that. My friendship is worth having, and you may choose
between it and my enmity, my virtuous Citoyenne."
Mademoiselle raised her delicate eyebrows very slightly.
"The Citizen does me altogether too much honour," she observed, her
voice in direct contradiction to her words.
"Tiens," he said, losing self-control, "you are a proud minx, and pride
goes before a fall. Are you not afraid? Come," dropping his voice, as
he caught Rosalie's ironical eye--"Come, be a sensible girl, and you
shall not find me hard to deal with. I am a slave to beauty--a smile, a
pleasant look or two, and I am your friend. Come then, Citoyenne Marie."
Mademoiselle remained silent. She looked past Hebert, at the street.
Rosalie got up exasperated, and pulled her aside.
"Little fool," she whispered, "can't you make yourself agreeable, like
any other girl. Smile, and keep him off. No one wants you to do more.
The man 's dangerous, I tell you so, I---- You 'll ruin us all with
your airs and graces, as if he were the mud under your feet."
Aline turned from her in a sudden despair.
"I am a poor, honest girl, Citizen," she said imploringly. "I have no
time for friendship. I have to work very hard, I harm nobody."
"But a friend," suggested Hebert, coming a little closer, "a friend
would feel it a privilege to do away with that necessity for hard work."
Mademoiselle's pallor flamed. She turned sharply away, feeling as if
she had been struck.
"Good-day, Citizen," she said proudly; "you have made a mistake," and
she passed from Rosalie's detaining hand.
Hebert sent an oath after her. He was most unmagisterially angry.
"Fool," he said, under his breath--"Damned fool."
Rosalie caught him up.
"He is a fool who wastes his time trying to pick the apple at the top of
the tree, when there are plenty to his hand," she observed pointedly.
He swore at her then, and went out without replying.
From that day a period of terror and humiliation beyond words set in for
Mlle de Rochambeau. Hebert's shadow lay across her path, and she feared
him, with a sickening, daily augmenting fear, that woke her gasping in
the night, and lay on her like a black nightmare by day.
Sometimes she did not see him for days, sometimes every day brought him
along the waiting queue, until he reached her side, and stood there
whispering hatefully, amusing himself by alternately calling the
indignant colour to her cheeks, and replacing it by a yet more indignant
pallor.
The strain told on her visibly, the thin cheeks were thinner, the dark
eyes looked darker, and showed unnaturally large and bright, whilst the
violet stains beneath them came to stay.
There was no one to whom she could appeal. Rosalie was furious with her
and her fine-lady ways. Louison, and the other neighbours, who could
have interfered to protect her from open insult, saw no reason to meddle
so long as the girl's admirer confined himself to words, and after the
first day Hebert had not laid hands on her again.
The torture of the man's companionship, the insult of his look, were
beyond their comprehension.
Meanwhile, Hebert's passing fancy for her beauty had changed into a
dull, malignant resolve to bend, or break her, and through her to injure
Dangeau, if it could possibly be contrived.
Women had their price, he reflected. Hers might not be money, but it
would perhaps be peace of mind, relief from persecution, or even
life--bare life.
After the first few days he gave up the idea of bringing any set
accusation against Dangeau. The man was away, his room locked, and
Rosalie would certainly not give up the key unless a domiciliary visit
were paid--a thing involving a little too much publicity for Hebert's
taste. Besides, he knew very well that rummage as he might, he would
find no evidence of conspiracy. Dangeau was an honest man, as he was
very well aware, and he hated him a good deal the more for the
inconvenient fact. No, it would not do to denounce Dangeau without some
very plain evidence to go upon. The accuser of Danton's friend might
find himself in an uncommonly tight place if his accusations could not
be proved. It would not do--it was not good enough, Hebert decided
regretfully; but the girl remained, and that way amusement beckoned as
well as revenge. If she remained obstinate, and if Dangeau were really
infatuated, and returned to find her in prison, he might easily be
tempted to commit some imprudence, out of which capital might be made.
That was a safer game, and might prove just as well worth playing in the
end. Meanwhile, was the girl Marie Roche, and nothing more? Did that
arresting look of nobility go for nothing, or was she playing a part?
If Rosalie knew, Therese might help. Now how fortunate that he had
always kept on good terms with Therese.
He took her a pair of gold ear-rings that evening, and whilst she set
them dangling in her ears, he slipped an arm about her, and kissed her
smooth red cheek.
"Morbleu!" he swore, "you 're a handsome creature, Therese; there 's no
one to touch you."
"What do you want?" asked Therese, with a shrewd glance into his
would-be amorous eyes.
"What, ma belle? What should I want? A kiss, if you 'll give it me.
Ah! the old days were the best."
Thus Hebert, disclaiming an ulterior motive.
Therese frowned, and twitched away from him.
"Ma foi, Hebert, am I a fool?" she returned, with a shrug. "You 've
forgotten a lot about those same old days if you think that. I 'll help
you if I can, but don't try and throw sand in my eyes, or you 'll get
some of it back, in a way that will annoy you"; and her black eyes
flared at him in the fashion he always admired. He thought her at her
best like that, and said so now.
"Chut!" she said impatiently. "What is it that you want?"
Hebert considered.
"You see your cousin sometimes, the widow Leboeuf, who has the shop in
the rue des Lanternes?"
"I see her often enough, twice--three times a week at present."
"Could you get something out of her?"
"Not if she knew I wanted to. Close as a miser's fist, that's what
Rosalie is, if she thinks she can spite you; but just now we are very
good friends--and, well, I dare say it might be done. Depends what it
is you want to know."
Hebert looked at her keenly.
"Perhaps you can tell me," he said, watching her face. "That girl who
lodges there, who is she? What is her name--her real name?"
In a flash Therese was crimson to the hair, and he had her by the wrist,
swinging her round to face him.
"Oho!" she cried, laughing till the new ear-rings tinkled, "so that's
it--that's the game? Well, if you can give that stuck-up aristocrat the
setting-down I 've promised her ever since I first saw her, I 'm with
you."
Hebert pounced on one word, like a cat.
"Aristocrat? Ah! I thought so," he said, his breathing quickening a
little. "Who is she, then, ma mie?"
Therese regarded him with a little scorn. She did not care who got
Hebert, since she had done with him herself, but what, _par exemple_,
did he see in a pale stick like that--and after having admired her,
Therese? Certainly men were past understanding.
She lolled easily on the arm of the chair.
"I 've not an idea, but I dare say I could find out--that is, if Rosalie
knows."
"Well, when you do, there 'll be a chain to match the ear-rings," said
Hebert, his arm round her waist again.
All the same, April had passed into May before Therese won her chain.
It was in the time between that Hebert haunted Mlle de Rochambeau's
footsteps, and employed what he considered his most seductive arts,
producing only a sensation of shuddering defilement from which neither
prayer nor effort could free her thoughts. One day, goaded past
endurance, she left Dangeau's folded note at the door of Clery's
lodging. When it had left her hand, she would have given the world to
have it back. How could she speak to a man of this shameful pursuit of
Hebert? How, having put Dangeau out of her life, could she use his
help, and appeal to his friend? And yet, how endure the daily shame,
the nightly agony of remembering those smooth, poisonous whispers, that
pale, dreadful smile? She cried her eyes red and swollen, and Edmond
Clery, looking up from a bantering exchange of compliments with Rosalie,
wondered as she came in, first if this could be she, and then at his
friend's taste. He permitted himself a complacent memory of Therese's
glowing cheeks and supple curves, and commended his own choice.
Rosalie's needles clicked amiably. She liked young men, and this was a
personable one. What a goose this girl was, to be sure!--like a
frightened rabbit with Hebert, and now with this amiable young man,
shrinking, white-faced! Bah! she had no patience with her.
Edmond bowed smilingly.
"My homage, Citoyenne," he said.
Aline forced a "Bonjour, Citizen," and then fell silent again. Ah! why
had she left the note--why, why, why?
Clery began to pity her plight, for there was something chivalrous in
him which rose at the sight of her obvious unhappiness, and he gave the
impulse rein.
"Will you not tell me how I can serve you?" he said in his gentlest
voice. "It will be both a pleasure and an honour."
Aline raised her tired eyes to his, and read kindness in the open
glance.
"You are very good," she said slowly, and looked past him with a
hesitating air.
Rosalie was busy serving at the moment, and a shrill argument over the
price of cabbage was in process. She stepped closer, and spoke very low.
"Citizen Dangeau said I might trust you, Citizen."
"Indeed you may; I am his friend and yours."
Even then the colour rose a little at this linking of their names. The
impulse towards confidence increased.
"I am in trouble, Citizen, or I should not have asked your help. There
is a man who follows, insults me, threatens even, and I am without a
protector."
"Not if you will confide that honour to me," said Clery quickly.
She smiled faintly.
"You are very good."
"But who is it? Tell me his name, and I will see that you are not
molested in future."
"It is the Citizen Deputy Hebert," faltered Aline, all her terror
returning as she pronounced the hateful name.
Clary's brows drew close, and a long whistle escaped his lips.
"Oho, Hebert," he said,--"Hebert; but there, Citoyenne, do not be
alarmed, I beg of you. Leave it to me"; after which he made his adieux
without conspicuous haste, leaving Rosalie much annoyed at having missed
most of the conversation.
Two days later, Hebert came foaming in on Therese. When he could speak,
he swore at her.
"See here, Therese, if you 've a hand in setting Clery at me, let me
warn you. I 'll take foul play from no woman alive, without giving as
good as I get, and if there 's any of your damned jealousy at work, you
she-devil, I 'll choke you as soon as look at you, and with a great deal
more pleasure!"
Therese stepped up to him and fixed her great black eyes on his pale,
twitching ones.
"Don't be so silly, Hebert," she said steadily, though her colour rose.
"What is it all about? What has young Clery done to you? It 's rather
late in the day for you to start quarrelling."
"Did you flatter yourself it was about you?" said Hebert brutally. "Not
much, my girl; I've fresher fish to fry. But he came up to me an hour
ago, and informed me he had been looking for me everywhere to tell me my
pursuit of that pattern of virtue, our good Dangeau's mistress, must
cease, or I 'd have him to reckon with, and what I want to know is, have
you a hand in this, or not?"
Therese was heavily flushed, and her eyes curiously veiled.
"What! Clery too?" she said in a deep whisper. "Dangeau, and you, and
Clery. Eh! I wish her joy of my cast-off clouts. But she shall
pay--Holy Virgin, she shall pay!"
Hebert caught her by the shoulder and shook it.
"What are you muttering? I ask you a plain question, and you don't
answer it. What about Clery--did you set him on?"
She threw back her head at that, and gave a long, wild laugh.
"Imbecile!" she screamed. "I? Do you hate him? Well, think how I must
love him when he too goes after this girl--goes to her from me, from
swearing I am his goddess, his inspiration? Ah!"--she caught at her
throat,--"but at least I can give you his head. The fool--the fool to
betray a woman who holds his life in her hands! Here is what the
imbecile wrote me only a week ago. Read, and say if it 's not enough to
give him to the embraces of the Guillotine?"
The paper she thrust at Hebert came from her bosom, and when he had read
it his dull eyes glittered.
"'The King's death a crime--perhaps time not ripe for a Republic.'
Therese, you 're worth your weight in gold. I don't think Edmond Clery
will write you any more love-letters."
Therese drew gloomily away.
"And the girl?" she asked, with a shiver.
"That, my dear, was to depend on what you could find out about her,"
Hebert reminded her.
His own fury had subsided, and he threw himself into a chair. Therese
made an abrupt movement.
"There is nothing more to find out. I have it all."
"You 've been long enough getting it," said Hebert, sitting up.
"Well, I have it now, and I told you all along that Rosalie was more
obstinate than a mule. She has been in one of her silent moods; she
would go to all the executions, and then, instead of being a pleasant
companion, there she would sit quite mum, or muttering to herself.
Yesterday, however, she seemed excited. There was a large batch told
off, three women amongst them, and one of them shrieked when Sanson took
her kerchief off. That seemed to wake Rosalie up. She got quite red,
and began to talk as if she had a fever."
"It is one you have caught from her, then," said Hebert impatiently.
"The news, my girl, the news! What do I care for your cousin and her
tantrums?"
Therese looked dangerous.
"Am I your cat's-paw, Hebert?" she said. "Pah! do your own dirty
work--you 'll get no more from me."
Hebert cursed his impatience--fool that he was not to remember Therese's
temper!
He forced an ugly smile.
"Oh, well, as you please," he said. "Let the girl go. There are other
fish in the sea. Best let Clery go too, and then they can make a match
of it, unless she should prefer Dangeau."
His intent eyes saw the girl's face change at that. "A thousand devils!"
she burst out. "Why do you plague me, Hebert? Be civil and play fair,
and you 'll get what you want."
"Come, come, Therese," he said soothingly. "We both want the same
thing--to teach a stuck-up baggage of an aristocrat a lesson. Let's be
friends again, and give me the news. Is it any good?"
"Good enough," said Therese, with a sulky look,--"good enough to take
her out of my way, if I say the word. Why, she 's a cousin of the
ci-devant Montargis, who got so prettily served on the third of
September."
"What?" exclaimed Hebert.
"Ah! you never guessed that, and you 'd never have got it out of
Rosalie; for she 's as close as the devil, and I believe has a sneaking
fondness for the girl."
"The Montargis!" repeated Hebert, rubbing his hands, slowly. This was
better than he expected. No wonder the girl went in terror! He had
heard the Paris mob howl for the blood of the Austrian spy, and he knew
that a word now would seal her fate.
"Her name?" he demanded.
"Rochambeau--Aline de Rochambeau. She only clipped the tail off, you
see, and with a taste that way, she should have no objection to a head
clipping--eh, my friend?" said Therese, with a short laugh.
Hebert went off with his plans made ready to his hand. It pleased him
to be able to ruin Clery, since Clery had crossed his path; and besides,
it would terrify the girl, and annoy Dangeau, who had a liking for the
boy. It was inconceivable that he should have been so imprudent as to
trust a woman like Therese, but since he had been such a fool he must
just pay for it with his head.
The truth was that Clery during his service at the Temple had been
strangely impressed, like many another, by the bearing of the
unfortunate Royal Family, and had conceived a young, whole-hearted
adoration for the Queen, which did not, unfortunately for himself,
interfere with his wholly mundane passion for Therese Marcel. In a
moment of extraordinary imprudence he made the latter his confidante,
never doubting that her love for himself would make her a perfectly safe
one. Poor lad! he was to pay a heavy price for his trust.
On the day following Hebert's interview with Therese he was arrested,
and after a short preliminary examination, which revealed to him her
treachery and his dangerous position, he was lodged in the Abbaye.
His arrest made some little stir in his own small world. Therese
herself brought the news of it to the rue des Lanternes. Her eyes were
very bright and hard as she glanced round the shop, and she laughed
louder than usual, as she threw out broad hints as to her own share in
the matter, for she liked Rosalie to know her power.
"I think you are a devil, Therese," said the fat woman gloomily.
"So others have said," returned Therese, with a wicked smile.
Mlle de Rochambeau took the blow in deadly silence. Hope was dead in her
heart, and she prayed earnestly that she alone might suffer, and not
have the wretchedness of feeling she had drawn another into the net
which was closing around her.
Hebert dallied yet a day or two, and then struck home. Aline was
hurrying homewards, her ears strained for the step she had grown to
expect, when all in a minute he was there by her side.
She turned on him with a sudden resolve.
"Citizen," she said earnestly, "why do you persecute me? What have I
done to you--to any one? Surely by now you realise that this pursuit is
useless?"
"The day that I realise that will be a bad day for you," said Hebert,
with malignant emphasis.
The threat brought her head up, with one of those movements of mingled
pride and grace which made him hate and covet her.
"I have done no wrong--what harm can you do me?" she said steadily.
"I have interest with the Revolutionary Tribunal--you may have heard of
the arrest of our young friend Clery? Ah! I thought so,"--as her
colour faded under his cruel gaze.
She shrank a little, but forced her voice to composure. "And does the
Revolutionary Tribunal concern itself with the affairs of a poor girl
who only asks to be allowed to earn her living honestly?"
Hebert smiled--a smile so wicked that she realised an impending blow,
and on the instant it fell.
"It would concern itself with the affairs of Mlle de Rochambeau, cousin
of the ci-devant Marquise de Montargis, who, if my memory serves me
right, was arrested on a charge of treasonable correspondence with
Austria, and who met a well-deserved fate at the hands of an indignant
people." He leaned closer as he spoke, and marked the instant
stiffening of each muscle in the white face.
For a moment her heart had stopped. Then it raced on again at a deadly
speed. She turned her head away that he might not see the terror in her
eyes, and a keen wind met her full, clearing the faintness from her
brain.
She walked on as steadily as she might, but the smooth voice was still
at her ear.
"You are in danger. My friendship alone can save you. What do you hope
for? The return of your lover Dangeau? I don't think I should count on
that if I were you, my angel. Once upon a time there was a young man of
the name of Clery--Edmond Clery to be quite correct--yes, I see you know
the story. No, I don't think your Dangeau will be of any assistance to
you when I denounce you, and denounce you I most certainly shall, unless
you ask me not to, prettily, with your arms round my neck, shall we
say--eh, Citoyenne Marie?"
As he spoke there was a rumble of wheels, and a rough cart came round
the corner towards them. He touched her arm, and she looked up
mechanically, to see that it held from eight to ten persons, all
pinioned, and through her own dull misery she was aware of pity stirring
at her heart, for these were prisoners on their way to the Place de la
Revolution.
One was an old man, very white and thin, his scanty hair straggling
above a stained, uncared-for coat, his misty blue eyes looking out at
the world with the unseeing stare of the blind or dying. Beside him
leaned a youth of about fifteen, whose laboured breath spoke of the
effort by which he preserved an appearance of calm. Beyond them was a
woman, very handsome and upright. Her hair, just cut, floated in short,
ragged wisps about her pale, set face. Her lips moved constantly, her
eyes looked down. Hebert laughed and pointed as the cart went by.
"That is where you 'll be if I give the word," he whispered. "Choose,
then--a place there, or a place here,"--and he made as if to encircle
her with his arm,--"choose, ma mie."
Aline closed her eyes. All her young life ran hotly in her veins, but
the force of its recoil from the man beside her was stronger than the
force of its recoil from death.
"The Citizen insults me when he assumes there is a choice," she said,
with cold lips.
"The prison is so attractive then? The embraces of the Guillotine so
preferable to mine--hein?"
"The Citizen has expressed my views."
Hebert cursed and flung away, but as she moved on he was by her side
again.
"After all," he said, "you may change your mind again. Until to-morrow,
I can save you."
"Citizen, I shall never change my mind. There is no choice; it is
simply that."
An inexorable decision looked from her face, and carried conviction even
to him.
"One cannot save imbeciles," he muttered as he left her.
Mademoiselle walked home with an odd sense of relief. Now that the
first shock was over, and the danger so long anticipated was actually
upon her, she was calm. At least Hebert would be gone from her life.
Death was clean and final; there would be no dishonour, no soiling of
her ears by that sensual voice, nor of her eyes by those evil glances.
She knelt and prayed for a while, and sat down to her work with hands
that moved as skilfully as before.
That night she slept more peacefully than she had done for weeks. In
her dreams she walked along a green and leafy lane, birds sang, and the
sky burned blue in the rising sun. She walked, and breathed blissful
air, and was happy.
Out of such dreams one awakes with a sense of the unreality of everyday
life. Some of the glamour clings about us, and we see a mirage of
happiness instead of the sands of the Desert of Desolation. Is it only
mirage, or some sense sealed, except at rarest intervals?--a sense
before whose awakened exercise the veil wears thin, and from behind we
catch the voices of the withdrawn, we feel the presence of peace, and
garner a little of the light of Eternity to shed a glow on Time.
Aline woke happily to a soft May dawn. Her dream lay warm against her
heart and cherished it.
In the evening she was arrested and taken to the prison of the Abbaye.