IN PARIS.--ALAIN PLAYS HIS LAST CARD
On the 10th of March at sunset the _Shawmut_ passed the Pointe de Grave
fort and entered the mouth of the Gironde, and at eleven o'clock next
morning dropped anchor a little below Blaye, under the guns of the
_Regulus_, 74. We were just in time, a British fleet being daily
expected there to co-operate with the Duc d'Angouleme and Count Lynch,
who was then preparing to pull the tricolour from his shoulder and
betray Bordeaux to Beresford, or, if you prefer it, to the Bourbon. News
of his purpose had already travelled down to Blaye, and therefore no
sooner were my feet once more on the soil of my beloved France, than I
turned them towards Libourne, or rather Fronsac, and the morning after
my arrival there, started for the capital.
But so desperately were the joints of travel dislocated (the war having
deplenished the country alike of cattle and able-bodied drivers), and so
frequent were the breakdowns by the way, that I might as expeditiously
have trudged it. It cost me fifteen good days to reach Orleans, and at
Etampes (which I reached on the morning of the 30th) the driver of the
tottering diligence flatly declined to proceed. The Cossacks and
Prussians were at the gates of Paris. "Last night we could see the fires
of their bivouacs. If Monsieur listens he can hear the firing." The
Empress had fled from the Tuileries. "Whither?" The driver, the
aubergiste, the disinterested crowd, shrugged their shoulders. "To
Rambouillet, probably. God knew what was happening or what would
happen." The Emperor was at Troyes, or at Sens, or else as near as
Fontainebleau; nobody knew for certain which. But the fugitives from
Paris had been pouring in for days, and not a cart or four-footed beast
was to be hired for love or money, though I hunted Etampes for hours.
At length, and at nightfall, I ran against a bow-kneed grey mare, and a
_cabriolet de place_, which, by its label, belonged to Paris; the pair
wandering the street under what it would be flattery to call the
guidance of an eminently drunken driver. I boarded him; he dissolved at
once into maudlin tears and prolixity. It appeared that on the 29th he
had brought over a bourgeois family from the capital, and had spent the
last three days in perambulating Etampes, and the past three nights in
crapulous slumber within his vehicle. Here was my chance, and I demanded
to know if for a price he would drive me back with him to Paris. He
declared, still weeping, that he was fit for anything. "For my part, I
am ready to die, and Monsieur knows that we shall never reach."
"Still, anything is better than Etampes."
For some inscrutable reason this struck him as excessively comic. He
assured me that I was a brave fellow, and bade me jump up at once.
Within five minutes we were jolting towards Paris. Our progress was all
but inappreciable, for the grey mare had come to the end of her powers,
and her master's monologue kept pace with her. His anecdotes were all of
the past three days. The iron of Etampes apparently had entered his soul
and effaced all memory of his antecedent career. Of the war, of any
recent public events, he could tell me nothing.
I had half expected--supposing the Emperor to be near Fontainebleau--to
happen on his vedettes, but we had the road to ourselves, and reached
Longjumeau a little before daybreak without having encountered a living
creature. Here we knocked up the proprietor of a cabaret, who assured us
between yawns that we were going to our doom, and after baiting the grey
and dosing ourselves with execrable brandy, pushed forward again. As the
sky grew pale about us, I had my ears alert for the sound of artillery.
But Paris kept silence. We passed Sceaux, and arrived at length at
Montrouge and the barrier. It was open--abandoned--not a sentry, not a
douanier visible.
"Where will Monsieur be pleased to descend?" my driver inquired, and
added, with an effort of memory, that he had a wife and two adorable
children on a top floor in the Rue du Mont Parnasse, and stabled his
mare handy by. I paid and watched him from the deserted pavement as he
drove away. A small child came running from a doorway behind me, and
blundered against my legs. I caught him by the collar and demanded what
had happened to Paris. "That I do not know," said the child, "but mamma
is dressing herself to take me to the review. Tenez!" he pointed, and at
the head of the long street I saw advancing the front rank of a
blue-coated regiment of Prussians, marching across Paris to take up
position on the Orleans road.
That was my answer. Paris had surrendered! And I had entered it from the
south just in time, if I wished, to witness the entry of His Majesty the
Emperor Alexander from the north. Soon I found myself one of a crowd
converging towards the bridges, to scatter northward along the line of
His Majesty's progress, from the Barriere de Pantin to the Champs
Elysees, where the grand review was to be held. I chose this for my
objective, and, making my way along the Quays, found myself shortly
before ten o'clock in the Place de la Concorde, where a singular little
scene brought me to a halt.
About a score of young men--aristocrats by their dress and
carriage--were gathered about the centre of the square. Each wore a
white scarf and the Bourbon cockade in his hat; and their leader, a
weedy youth with hay-coloured hair, had drawn a paper from his pocket
and was declaiming its contents at the top of a voice by several sizes
too big for him:--
"For Paris is reserved the privilege, under circumstances now
existing, to accelerate the dawn of Universal Peace. Her suffrage is
awaited with the interest which so immense a result naturally
inspires,"
_et cetera_. Later on, I possessed myself of a copy of the Prince of
Schwartzenberg's proclamation, and identified the wooden rhetoric at
once.
"Parisians! you have the example of Bordeaux before you".... Ay, by the
Lord, they had--right under their eyes! The hay-coloured youth wound up
his reading with a "Vive le Roi!" and his band of walking gentlemen took
up the shout. The crowd looked on impassive; one or two edged away; and
a grey-haired, soldierly horseman (whom I recognised for the Duc de
Choiseul-Praslin) passing in full tenue of Colonel of the National
Guard, reined up, and addressed the young men in a few words of grave
rebuke. Two or three answered by snapping their fingers, and repeating
their "Vive le Roi" with a kind of embarrassed defiance. But their
performance, before so chilling an audience, was falling sadly flat when
a dozen or more of young royalist bloods came riding up to reanimate
it--among them, M. Louis de Chateaubriand, M. Talleyrand's brother,
Archambaut de Perigord, the scoundrelly Marquis de Maubreuil--yes, and
my cousin, the Vicomte de Saint-Yves!
The indecency, the cynical and naked impudence of it, took me like a
buffet. There, in a group of strangers, my cheek reddened under it, and
for the moment I had a mind to run. I had done better to run. By a
chance his eye missed mine as he swaggered past at a canter, for all the
world like a tenore robusto on horseback, with the rouge on his face,
and his air of expansive Olympian black-guardism. He carried a lace
white handkerchief at the end of his riding switch, and this was bad
enough. But as he wheeled his bay thoroughbred, I saw that he had
followed the _declasse_ Maubreuil's example and decorated the brute's
tail with a Cross of the Legion of Honour. That brought my teeth
together, and I stood my ground.
"Vive le Roi!" "Vivent les Bourbons!" "A bas le sabot corse!" Maubreuil
had brought a basketful of white brassards and cockades, and the gallant
horsemen began to ride about and press them upon the unresponsive crowd.
Alain held one of the badges at arm's length as he pushed into the
little group about me, and our eyes met.
"_Merci_," said I, "_retenez-le jusqu'a ce que nous nous
rencontrions_--_Rue Gregoire de Tours!_"
His arm with the riding switch and laced handkerchief went up as though
he had been stung. Before it could descend, I darted aside deep into the
crowd which hustled around him, understanding nothing, but none the less
sullenly hostile. "A bas les cocardes blanches!" cried one or two. "Who
was the cur?" I heard Maubreuil's question as he pressed in to the
rescue, and Alain's reply, "Peste! A young relative of mine who is in a
hurry to lose his head; whereas I prefer to choose the time for that."
I took this for a splutter of hatred, and even found it laughable as I
made my escape good. At the same time, our encounter had put me out of
humour for gaping at the review, and I turned back and recrossed the
river, to seek the Rue du Fouarre and the Widow Jupille.
Now the Rue du Fouarre, though once a very famous thoroughfare, is
to-day perhaps as squalid as any that drains its refuse by a single
gutter into the Seine, and the widow had been no beauty even in the days
when she followed the 106th of the Line as vivandiere and before she
wedded Sergeant Jupille of that regiment. But she and I had struck up a
friendship over a flesh-wound which I received in an affair of outposts
on the Algueda, and thenceforward I taught myself to soften the edge of
her white wine by the remembered virtues of her ointment, so that when
Sergeant Jupille was cut off by a grapeshot in front of Salamanca, and
his Philomene retired to take charge of his mother's wine shop in the
Rue du Fouarre, she had enrolled my name high on the list of her
prospective patrons. I felt myself, so to speak, a part of the goodwill
of her house, and "Heaven knows," thought I, as I threaded the
insalubrious street, "it is something for a soldier of the Empire to
count even on this much in Paris to-day. _Est aliquid, quocunque loco,
quocunque sacello...._"
Madame Jupille knew me at once, and we fell (figuratively speaking) upon
each other's neck. Her shop was empty, the whole quarter had trooped off
to the review. After mingling our tears (again figuratively) over the
fickleness of the capital, I inquired if she had any letters for me.
"Why, no, comrade."
"None?" I exclaimed with a very blank face.
"Not one"; Madame Jupille eyed me archly, and relented. "The reason
being that Mademoiselle is too discreet."
"Ah!" I heaved a big sigh of relief. "You provoking woman, tell me what
you mean by that?"
"Well, now, it may have been ten days ago that a stranger called in and
asked if I had any news of the corporal who praised my white wine. 'Have
I any news,' said I, 'of a needle in a bundle of hay? They all praise
it.'" (O, Madame Jupille!)
"'The corporal I'm speaking of,' said he, 'is or was called
Champdivers.' '_Was!_' I cried, 'you are not going to tell me he is
dead?' and I declare to you, comrade, the tears came into my eyes. 'No,
he is not,' said the stranger, 'and the best proof is that he will be
here inquiring for letters before long. You are to tell him that if he
expects one from'--see, I took the name down on a scrap of paper, and
stuck it in a wine-glass here--'from Miss Flora Gilchrist, he will do
well to wait in Paris until a friend finds means to deliver it by hand.
And if he asks more about me, say that I am from'--tenez, I wrote the
second name underneath--yes, that is it--'Mr. Romaine.'"
"Confound his caution!" said I. "What sort of man was this messenger?"
"O, a staid-looking man, dark and civil-spoken. You might call him an
upper servant, or perhaps a notary's clerk; very plainly dressed, in
black."
"He spoke French?"
"_Parfaitement._ What else?"
"And he has not called again?"
"To be sure, yes, and the day before yesterday, and seemed quite
disappointed. 'Is there anything Monsieur would like to add to his
message?' I asked. 'No,' said he, 'or stay, tell him that all goes well
in the north, but he must not leave Paris until I see him.'"
You may guess how I cursed Mr. Romaine for this beating about the bush.
If all went well in the north, what possible excuse of caution could the
man have for holding back Flora's letter? And how, in any case, could it
compromise me here in Paris? I had half a mind to take the bit in my
teeth and post off at once for Calais. Still, there was the plain
injunction, and the lawyer doubtless had a reason for it hidden
somewhere behind his tiresome circumambulatory approaches. And his
messenger might be back at any hour.
Therefore, though it went against the grain, I thought it prudent to
take lodgings with Madame Jupille and possess my soul in patience. You
will say that it should not have been difficult to kill time in Paris
between the 31st of March and the 5th of April 1814. The entry of the
Allies, Marmont's supreme betrayal, the Emperor's abdication, the
Cossacks in the streets, the newspaper offices at work like hives under
their new editors, and buzzing contradictory news from morning to night;
a new rumour at every cafe, a scuffle, or the makings of one, at every
street corner, and hour by hour a steady stream of manifestoes,
placards, handbills, caricatures, and broadsheets of opprobrious
verse--the din of it all went by me like the vain noises of a dream as I
trod the pavements, intent upon my own hopes and perplexities. I cannot
think that this was mere selfishness; rather, a deep disgust was weaning
me from my country. If this Paris indeed were the reality, then was I
the phantasm, the _revenant_; then was France--the France for which I
had fought and my parents gone to the scaffold--a land that had never
been, and our patriotism the shadow of a shade. Judge me not too hardly
if in the restless, aimless perambulations of those five days I crossed
the bridge between the country that held neither kin nor friends for me,
but only my ineffectual past, and the country wherein one human
creature, if only one, had use for my devotion.
On the sixth day--that is, April 5th--my patience broke down. I took my
resolution over lunch and a bottle of Beaujolais, and walked straight
back from the restaurant to my lodgings, where I asked Madame Jupille
for pen, ink, and paper, and sat down to advertise Mr. Romaine that, for
good or ill, he might expect me in London within twenty-four hours of
the receipt of this letter.
I had scarce composed the first sentence, when there came a knock at the
door and Madame Jupille announced that two gentlemen desired to see me.
"Show them up," said I, laying down my pen with a leaping heart; and in
the doorway a moment later stood--my cousin Alain!
He was alone. He glanced with a grin of comprehension from me to the
letter, advanced, set his hat on the table beside it, and his gloves
(after blowing into them) beside his hat.
"My cousin," said he, "you show astonishing agility from time to time;
but on the whole you are damned easy to hunt."
I had risen. "I take it you have pressing business to speak of, since
amid your latest political occupations you have been at pains to seek me
out. If so, I will ask you to be brief."
"No pains at all," he corrected affably. "I have known all the time that
you were here. In fact, I expected you some while before you arrived,
and sent my man, Paul, with a message."
"A message?"
"Certainly--touching a letter from _la belle Flora_. You received it?
The message, I mean."
"Then it was not----"
"No, decidedly it was not Mr. Romaine, to whom"--with another glance at
the letter--"I perceive that you are writing for explanations. And since
you are preparing to ask how on earth I traced you to this rather
unsavoury den, permit me to inform you that a--b spells 'ab,' and that
Bow Street, when on the track of a criminal, does not neglect to open
his correspondence."
I felt my hand tremble as it gripped the top rail of my chair, but I
managed to command the voice to answer, coldly enough:
"One moment, Monsieur le Vicomte, before I do myself the pleasure of
pitching you out of window. You have detained me these five days in
Paris, and have done so, you give me to understand, by the simple
expedient of a lie. So far, so good; will you do me the favour to
complete the interesting self-exposure, and inform me of your reasons?"
"With all the pleasure in life. My plans were not ready, a little detail
wanting, that is all. It is now supplied." He took a chair, seated
himself at the table, and drew a folded paper from his breast-pocket.
"It will be news to you perhaps, that our uncle--our lamented uncle, if
you choose--is dead these three weeks."
"Rest his soul!"
"Forgive me if I stop short of that pious hope." Alain hesitated, let
his venom get the better of him, and spat out on his uncle's memory an
obscene curse which only betrayed the essential weakness of the man.
Recovering himself, he went on: "I need not recall to you a certain
scene (I confess too theatrical for my taste), arranged by the lawyer at
his bedside; nor need I help you to an inkling of the contents of his
last will. But possibly it may have slipped your memory that I gave
Romaine fair warning. I promised him that I would raise the question of
undue influence, and that I had my witnesses ready. I have added to them
since; but I own to you that my case will be the stronger when you have
obligingly signed the paper which I have the honour to submit to you."
And he tossed it, unopened, across the table.
I picked it up and unfolded it:--"_I, the Viscount Anne de Keroual de
Saint-Yves, formerly serving under the name of Champdivers in the
Buonapartist army, and later under that name a prisoner of war in the
Castle of Edinburgh, hereby state that I had neither knowledge of my
uncle the Count de Keroual de Saint-Yves, nor expectations from him, nor
was owned by him, until sought out by Mr. Daniel Romaine, in the Castle
of Edinburgh, by him supplied with money to expedite my escape, and by
him clandestinely smuggled at nightfall into Amersham Place; Further,
that until that evening I had never set eyes on my uncle, nor have set
eyes on him since; that he was bedridden when I saw him, and apparently
in the last stage of senile decay. And I have reason to believe that Mr.
Romaine did not fully inform him of the circumstances of my escape, and
particularly of my concern in the death of a fellow-prisoner named
Goguelat, formerly a marechal des logis in the 22nd Regiment of the
Line_...."
Of the contents of this precious document let a sample suffice. From end
to end it was a tissue of distorted statements implicated with
dishonouring suggestions. I read it through, and let it drop on the
table.
"I beg your pardon," said I, "but what do you wish me to do with it?"
"Sign it," said he.
I laughed. "Once more I beg your pardon, but though you have apparently
dressed for it, this is not comic opera."
"Nevertheless you will sign."
"O, you weary me." I seated myself, and flung a leg over the arm of my
chair. "Shall we come to the alternative For I assume you have one."
"The alternative, to be sure," he answered cheerfully. "I have a
companion below, one Clausel, and at the 'Tete d'Or,' a little way up
the street, an escort of police."
Here was a pleasing predicament. But if Alain had started with a chance
of daunting me (which I do not admit), he had spoilt it long since by
working on the raw of my temper. I kept a steady eye on him, and
considered: and the longer I considered the better assured was I that
his game must have a disastrously weak point somewhere, which it was my
business to find.
"You have reminded me of your warning to Mr. Romaine. The subject is an
ugly one for two of our family to touch upon; but do you happen to
recall Mr. Romaine's counter-threat?"
"Bluff! my young sir. It served his purpose for the moment, I grant you.
I was unhinged. The indignity, the very monstrosity of it, the
baselessness, staggered reason."
"It was baseless, then?"
"The best proof is that in spite of his threat, and my open contempt and
disregard of it, Mr. Romaine has not stirred a hand."
"You mean that my uncle destroyed the evidence?"
"I mean nothing of the kind," he retorted hotly, "for I deny that any
such evidence at any time existed."
I kept my eye on him. "Alain," I said quietly, "you are a liar."
A flush darkened his face beneath its cosmetics, and with an oath he
dipped finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a dog
whistle. "No more of that," said he, "or I whistle up the police this
minute."
"Well, well, let us resume the discussion. You say this man Clausel has
denounced me?"
He nodded.
"Soldiers of the Empire are cheap in Paris just now."
"So cheap that public opinion would be content if all the messieurs
Champdivers were to kill all the messieurs Goguelat and be shot or
guillotined for it. I forget which your case demands, and doubt if
public opinion would inquire."
"And yet," I mused, "there must be preliminaries; some form of trial,
for instance, with witnesses. It is even possible that I might be found
innocent."
"I have allowed for that unlikely chance, and I look beyond it. To be
frank, it does not strike me as probable that a British jury will hand
over the estates of the Comte de Keroual de Saint-Yves to an escaped
Buonapartist prisoner who has stood his trial for the murder of a
comrade, and received the benefit of the doubt."
"Allow me," said I, "to open the window an inch or two. No; put back
your whistle. I do not propose to fling you out, at least not just yet;
nor will I try to escape. To tell you the truth, you suggest the need of
a little fresh air. And now, Monsieur, you assure me you hold the knave
in your hand. Well then, play him. Before I tear your foolish paper up,
let me have a look at your confederate." I stepped to the door and
called down the stairs, "Madame Jupille, be so good as to ask my other
visitor to ascend."
With that I turned to the window again and stood there looking out upon
the foul gutter along which the refuse of some dye-works at the head of
the street found its way down to the Seine. And standing so, I heard the
expected footsteps mounting the stairs.
"I must ask your pardon, Monsieur, for this intrusion----"
"Hey!" If the words had been a charge of shot fired into my back, I
could not have spun round on them more suddenly. "Mr. Romaine!"
For indeed it was he, and not Clausel, who stood in the doorway. And to
this day I do not know if Alain or I stared at him with the blanker
bewilderment; though I believe there was a significant difference in our
complexions.
"M. le Vicomte," said Romaine advancing, "recently effected an exchange.
I have taken the liberty to effect another, and have left Mr. Clausel
below listening to some arguments which are being addressed to him by
Mr. Dudgeon, my confidential clerk. I think I may promise"--with a
chuckle--"they will prove effectual. By your faces, gentlemen, I see
that you regard my appearance as something in the nature of a miracle.
Yet, M. le Vicomte at least should be guessing by this time that it is
the simplest, most natural affair in the world. I engaged my word, sir,
to have you watched. Will it be set down to more than ordinary
astuteness that, finding you in negotiations for the exchange of the
prisoner Clausel, we kept an eye upon him also?--that we followed him to
Dover, and though unfortunate in missing the boat, reached Paris in time
to watch the pair of you leave your lodgings this morning--nay, that
knowing whither you were bound, we reached the Rue du Fouarre in time to
watch you making your dispositions? But I run on too fast. Mr. Anne, I
am entrusted with a letter for you. When, with Mr. Alain's permission,
you have read it, we will resume our little conversation."
He handed me the letter and walked to the fireplace, where he took snuff
copiously, while Alain eyed him like a mastiff about to spring. I broke
open my letter and stooped to pick up a small enclosure which fell from
it.
"MY DEAREST ANNE,--When your letter came and put life into me again,
I sat down in my happiness and wrote you one that I shall never allow
you to see; for it makes me wonder at myself. But when I took it to
Mr. Robbie, he asked to see your letter, and when I showed him the
_wrapper_, declared that it had been tampered with, and if I wrote
and told you what we were doing for you, it might only make your
enemies the wiser. For we have done something, and this (which is
purely a business letter) is to tell you that the credit does not all
belong to Mr. Robbie, or to your Mr. Romaine (who by Mr. Robbie's
account must be quite a tiresome old gentleman, though well-meaning,
no doubt). But on the Tuesday after you left us I had a talk with
Major Chevenix, and when I really felt quite sorry for him (though it
was no use and I told him so), he turned round in a way I could not
but admire and said he wished me well and would prove it. He said the
charge against you was really one for the military authorities alone;
that he had reasons for feeling sure that you had been drawn into
this affair on _a point of honour_, which was quite a different thing
from _what they said_; and that he could not only make an affidavit
or something of the kind on his own account, but knew enough of that
man Clausel to make him confess the truth. Which he did the very next
day, and made Clausel sign it, and Mr. Robbie has a copy of the man's
statement which he is sending with this to Mr. Romaine in London; and
that is the reason why Rowley (who is a _dear_) has come over and is
waiting in the kitchen while I write these hurried lines. He says,
too, that Major Chevenix was only just in time, since Clausel's
friends are managing an exchange for him, and he is going back to
France. And so in haste I write myself,--Your sincere friend,
FLORA.
"_P.S._--My aunt is well; Ronald is expecting his commission.
"_P.P.S._--You told me to write it, and so I must: 'I love you,
Anne.'"
The enclosure was a note in a large and unformed hand, and ran--
"DEAR MR. ANNE, RESPECTED SIR,--This comes hopeing to find you well
as it leaves me at present, all is well as Miss Flora will tell you
that double-died Clausel has contest. This is to tell you Mrs. Mac R.
is going on nicely, bar the religion which is only put on to anoy
people and being a widow who blames her, not me. Miss Flora says she
will put this in with hers, and there is something else but it is a
dead secret, so no more at present from, sir,--Yours Respectfully,
"JAS. ROWLEY."
Having read these letters through, I placed them in my breast-pocket,
stepped to the table and handed Alain's document gravely back to him;
then turned to Mr. Romaine, who shut his snuff-box with a snap.
"It only remains, I think," said the lawyer, "to discuss the terms which
(merely as a matter of generosity, or say, for the credit of your house)
can be granted to your--to Mr. Alain."
"You forget Clausel, I think," snarled my cousin.
"True, I had forgotten Clausel." Mr. Romaine stepped to the head of the
stairs and called down, "Dudgeon!"
Mr. Dudgeon appeared, and endeavoured to throw into the stiffness of his
salutation a denial that he had ever waltzed with me in the moonlight.
"Where is the man Clausel?"
"I hardly know, sir, if you would place the wine-shop of the 'Tete d'Or'
at the top or at the bottom of this street; I presume the top, since the
sewer runs in the opposite direction. At all events Mr. Clausel
disappeared about two minutes ago in the same direction as the sewer."
Alain sprang up, whistle in hand.
"Put it down," said Mr. Romaine. "The man was cheating you. I can only
hope," he added with a sour smile, "that you paid him on account with an
I.O.U."
But Alain turned at bay. "One trivial point seems to have escaped you,
Master Attorney, or your courage is more than I gave you credit for. The
English are none too popular in Paris as yet, and this is not the most
scrupulous quarter. One blast of this whistle, a cry of '_Espion
Anglais!_' and two Englishmen----"
"Say three," Mr. Romaine interrupted, and strode to the door. "Will Mr.
Burchell Fenn be good enough to step upstairs?"
And here let me cry "Halt." There are things in this world--or that is
my belief--too pitiful to be set down in writing, and of these, Alain's
collapse was one. It may be, too, that Mr. Romaine's British
righteousness accorded rather ill with the weapon he used so
unsparingly. Of Fenn I need only say, that the luscious rogue shouldered
through the doorway as though he had a public duty to discharge, and
only the contrariness of circumstances had prevented his discharging it
before. He cringed to Mr. Romaine, who held him and the whole nexus of
his villainies in the hollow of his hand. He was even obsequiously eager
to denounce his fellow-traitor. Under a like compulsion, he would (I
feel sure) have denounced his own mother. I saw the sturdy Dudgeon's
mouth working like a bull-terrier's over a shrewmouse. And between them,
Alain had never a chance. Not for the first time in this history, I
found myself all but taking sides with him in sheer repulsion from the
barbarity of the attack. It seemed that it was through Fenn that Mr.
Romaine had first happened on the scent; and the greater rogue had held
back a part of the evidence, and would trade it now--"having been led
astray--to any gentleman that would let bygones be bygones." And it was
I, at length, who interposed when my cousin was beaten to his knees,
and, having dismissed Mr. Burchell Fenn, restored the discussion to a
businesslike footing. The end of it was, that Alain renounced all his
claims, and accepted a yearly pension of six thousand francs. Mr.
Romaine made it a condition that he should never set foot again in
England; but seeing that he would certainly be arrested for debt within
twenty-four hours of his landing at Dover, I thought this unnecessary.
"A good day's work," said the lawyer, as we stood together in the street
outside.
But I was silent.
"And now, Mr. Anne, if I may have the honour of your company at
dinner--shall we say Tortoni's?--we will on our way step round to my
hotel, the Quatre Saisons, behind the Hotel de Ville, and order a
_caleche_ and four to be in readiness."