One evening Jacques slunk like a thief up the stairs of his house and
entered his room furtively. He was pale, his face contorted, his eyes
haggard; and it was with a panting voice he called Marianne.
"I am pursued," he said; "I have come to let you know and to share what
money you have--for I must escape."
She threw herself upon his neck.
"What is it you have done?"
"Oh! a mere nothing: posted up some bills on the walls; they say these
placards are seditious."
"And you are being pursued?"
"Yes, they are trying to arrest me. I'm not afraid of a prison, but I
don't fancy being made to pay for others."
"Yet that is all you will do, Jacques; for you are weak-minded, and
allow yourself to be led away."
"They say it is revolutionary."
"Yes, and they will make an insurgent of you. They will push you on
to fight behind a barricade; they will get themselves made Deputies
or Ministers, and leave you to be put in irons and sent to die five
thousand leagues away, if you are not shot against a wall. It is wrong
of you, Jacques, to have allowed yourself to be led into this position;
women see further than you--because they are mothers."
All the while she was weeping and talking she was hurriedly making
up a bundle of clothes. Then kissing Jacques--holding him in a long
embrace--she placed two five-franc pieces in his hand, perhaps the only
two left in the house.
"Don't go yet," she said; "I want you to see the children."
But sounds were heard on the stairs--the whisperings of men stealthily
ascending.
"The police!" cried Houdaille. "Oh, the brutes!--Adieu! I have no time
to lose. Don't be afraid--they won't take me!"
[Illustration: "STRIKING OUT WITH HIS FISTS,"]
He opened the door suddenly and darted down the stairs, striking out
with his fists, and with such whirling rapidity, that the poor fellows
in pursuit of him had nothing but their pains for their labour in the
long and fruitless chase which followed.
Marianne breathed again--he was saved. Saved, yes--but what was to
become of him?
During the greater part of the night she stood with her face pressing
the windowpane, shuddering at the slightest sound made without,
expecting every moment to see him re-appear. For an instant a cold
perspiration burst out upon her forehead; it was a troop of soldiers, a
whole battalion of infantry, the commander at its head, passing under
her windows, and when the sound of their feet had died away into the
icy silence of the night, it was the turn of cavalry, the iron hoofs of
the horses clattering upon the frosted pavement in the moonlight. It
was part of a regiment of dragoons, with down-bent heads, enveloped in
their grey cloaks and sabre in hand.