Old M. des Cadoux laughed in the dark, as with his sword hanging from his wrist he tapped his snuff-box.

"Ma foi," said he to his neighbour, "they are discovering that it is not to be the triumphal march they had expected. A pinch of rappee, Stanislas?"

But the respite was brief. In a moment they saw the glare increase at the door, and presently a half-dozen of the rabble entered with torches, followed by some scores of their comrades. They paused at sight of that company ranged upon the stairs, as well they might, for a more incongruous sight could scarcely be imagined. Across the bodies of the slain, and revealed by the lifting powder smoke, stood that little band of thirty men, a blaze of gay colours, a sheen of silken hose, their wigs curled and powdered, their costly ruffles scintillant with jewels; calm, and supercilious, mocking to a man. There was a momentary gasp of awe, and then the spell was broken by the aristocrats themselves. A pistol spoke, and a volley followed. In the hall some stumbled forward, some hurtled backward, and some sank down in nerveless heaps. But those that remained did not again retreat. Reinforced by others, that crowded in behind, they charged boldly up the stairs, headed by a ragged, red capped giant named Souvestre—a man whom the Marquis had once irreparably wronged.

The sight of him was a revelation to Bellecour. This assault was Souvestre's work; the fellow had been inciting the people of Bellecour for the past twelve months, long indeed before the outbreak of the revolution proper, and at last he had roused them to the pitch of accompanying him upon his errand of tardy but relentless vengeance.

With a growl the Marquis raised his pistol. But Souvestre saw the movement, and with a laugh he did the like. Simultaneously there were two reports, and Bellecour's arm fell shattered to his side. Souvestre continued to advance, his smoking pistol in one hand and brandishing a huge sabre with the other. Behind him, howling and roaring like the beasts of prey they were become, surged the tenantry of Bellecour to pay the long-standing debt of hate to their seigneur.

"Here," said Des Cadoux, with a grimace, "endeth the chapter of our lives. I wonder, do they keep rappee in heaven?" He snapped down the lid of his gold snuffbox—that faithful companion and consoler of so many years—and cast it viciously at the head of one of the oncoming peasants. Then tossing back the lace from his wrist he brought his sword into guard and turned aside a murderous stroke which an assailant aimed at him.

"Animal," he snapped viciously, as he set to work, "it is the first time that my chaste blade has been crossed with such dirty steel as yours. I hope, for the honour of Cadoux, that it may not be quite the last."

Up, and ever up, swept that murderous tide. The half of those that had held the stairs lay weltering upon them as if in a last attempt to barricade with their bodies what they could no longer defend with their hands. A bare half-score remained standing, and amongst these that gallant old Cadoux, who had by now accounted for a half-dozen sans-culottes, and was hence in high glee, a man rejuvenesced. His sallies grew livelier and more barbed as the death-tide rose higher about him. His one regret was that he had been so hasty in casting his snuff box from him, for he was missing its familiar stimulus. At his side the Marquis was fighting desperately, fencing with his left arm, and in the hot excitement seeming oblivious of the pain his broken right must be occasioning.

"It is ended, old friend," he groaned at last, to Des Cadoux. "I am losing strength, and I shall be done for in a moment. The women," he almost sobbed, "mon Dieu, the women!"

Des Cadoux felt his old eyes grow moist, and the odd, fierce mirth that seemed to have hitherto infected him went out like a candle that is snuffed. But suddenly before he could make any answer, a new and unexpected sound, which dominated the din of combat, and seemed to cause all—assailants and defenders alike—to pause that they might listen, was wafted to their ears.

It was the roll of the drum. Not the mere thudding that had beaten the step for the mob, but the steady and vigorous tattoo of many sticks upon many skins.

"What is it? Who comes?" were the questions that men asked one another, as both aristocrats and sansculottes paused in their bloody labours. It was close at hand. So close at hand that they could discern the tramp of marching feet. In the infernal din of that fight upon the stairs they had not caught the sound of this approach until now that the new-comers—whoever they might be—were at the very gates of Bellecour.

From the mob in the yard there came a sudden outcry. Men sprang to the door of the Chateau and shouted to those within.

"Aux Armes," was the cry. "A nous, d nous!"

And in response to it the assailants turned tail, and dashed down the stairs, overleaping the dead bodies that were piled upon them, and many a man slipping in that shambles and ending the descent on his back. Out into the courtyard they swept: leaving that handful of gentlemen, their fine clothes disordered, splashed with blood and grimed with powder, to question one another touching this portent, this miracle that seemed wrought by Heaven for their salvation.



CHAPTER VI. THE CITIZEN COMMISSIONER

It was, after all, no miracle, unless the very timely arrival upon the scene of a regiment of the line might be accepted in the light of Heaven-directed. As a matter of fact, a rumour of the assault that was to be made that night upon the Chateau de Bellecour had travelled as far as Amiens, and there, that evening, it had reached the ears of a certain Commissioner of the National Convention, who was accompanying this regiment to the army of Dumouriez, then in Belgium.

Now it so happened that this Commissioner had meditated making a descent upon the Chateau on his own account, and he was not minded that any peasantry should forestall or baulk him in the business which he proposed to carry out there. Accordingly, he issued certain orders to the commandant, from which it resulted that a company, two hundred strong, was immediately despatched to Bellecour, to either defend or rescue it from the mob, and thereafter to await the arrival of the Commissioner himself.

This was the company that had reached Bellecour in the eleventh hour, to claim the attention of the assailants. But the peasants, as we have seen, were by no means disposed to submit to interference, and this they signified by the menacing front they showed the military, abandoning their attack upon the Chateau until they should be clear concerning the intentions of the newcomers. Of these intentions the Captain did not leave them long in doubt. A brisk word of command brought his men into a bristling line of attack, which in itself should have proved sufficient to ensure the peasantry's respect.

"Citizens" cried the officer, stepping forward, "in the name of the French Republic I charge you to withdraw and to leave us unhampered in the business we are here to discharge."

"Citizen-captain," answered the giant Souvestre, constituting himself the spokesman of his fellows, "we demand to know by what right you interfere with honest patriots of France in the act of ridding it of some of the aristocratic vermin that yet lingers on its soil?"

The officer stared at his interlocutor, amazed by the tone of the man as much as by the sudden growls that chorused it, but nowise intimidated by either the one or the other.

"I proclaimed my right when I issued my charge in the name of the Republic," he answered shortly.

"We are the Republic," Souvestre retorted, with a wave of the hand towards the ferocious crowd of men and women behind him. "We are the Nation—the sacred people of France. In our own name, Citizen-soldier, we charge you to withdraw and leave us undisturbed."

Here lay the basis of an argument into which, however, the Captain, being neither politician nor dialectician, was not minded to be drawn. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to his men.

"Present arms!" was the answer he delivered, in a voice of supreme unconcern.

"Citizen-captain, this is an outrage," screamed a voice in the mob. "If blood is shed, upon your own head be it."

"Will you withdraw?" inquired the Captain coldly.

"To me, my children," cried Souvestre, brandishing his sabre, and seeking to encourage his followers. "Down with these traitors who dishonour the uniform of France! Death to the blue-coats!"

He leapt forward towards the military, and with a sudden roar his followers, a full hundred strong sprang after him to the charge.

"Fire!" commanded the Captain, and from the front line of his company fifty sheets of flame flashed from fifty carbines.

The mob paused; for a second it wavered; then before the smoke had lifted it broke, and shrieking in terror, it fled for cover, leaving the valorous Souvestre alone, to revile them for a swarm of cowardly rats.

The Captain put his hands to his sides and laughed till the tears coursed down his cheeks. Checking his mirth at last, he called to Souvestre, who was retreating in disgust and anger.

"Hi! My friend the patriot! Are you still of the same mind or will you withdraw your people?"

"We will not withdraw," answered the giant sullenly. "You dare not fire upon free citizens of the French Republic."

"Dare I not? Do you delude yourself with that, nor think that because this time I fired over your heads I dare not fire into your ranks. I give you my word that if I have to command my men to fire a second time it shall not be mere make-believe, and I also give you my word that if at the end of a minute I have not your reply and you are not moving out of this—every rogue of you shall have a very bitter knowledge of how much I dare."

Souvestre was headstrong and angry. But what can one man, however headstrong and however angry, do against two hundred, when his own followers refuse to support him. The valour of the peasants was distinctly of that quality whose better part is discretion. The thunder of that fusillade had been enough to shatter their nerve, and to Souvestre's exhortations that they should become martyrs in the noble cause, of the people against tyranny, in whatsoever guise it came, they answered with the unanswerable logic of caution.

The end was that a very few moments later saw them in full retreat, leaving the military in sole and undisputed possession of Bellecour.

The officer's first thought was for the blazing stables, and he at once ordered a detachment of his company to set about quenching the fire, a matter in which they succeeded after some two hours of arduous labour.

Meanwhile, leaving the main body bivouacked in the courtyard, he entered the Chateau with a score of men, and came upon the ten gentlemen still standing in the shambles that the grand staircase presented. With the Marquis de Bellecour the Captain had a brief and not over courteous interview. He informed the nobleman that he was acting under the orders of a Commissioner, who had heard at Amiens, that evening, of the attack that was to be made upon Bellecour. Not unnaturally the Marquis was mistrustful of the ends which that Commissioner, whoever he might be, looked to serve by so unusual an act. Far better did it sort with the methods of the National Convention and its members to leave the butchering of aristocrats to take its course. He sought information at the Captain's hands, but the officer was reticent to the point of curtness, and so, their anxiety but little relieved, since it might seem that they had but escaped from Scylla to be engulfed in Charbydis, the aristocrats at Bellecour spent the night in odious suspense. Those that were tending the wounded had perhaps the best of it, since thus their minds were occupied and saved the torture of speculation.

The proportion of slain was mercifully small: of twenty that had fallen it was found that but six were dead, the others being more or less severely hurt. Conspicuous among the men that remained, and perhaps the bravest of them all was old Des Cadoux. He had recovered his snuff-box, than which there seemed to be nothing of greater importance in the world, and he moved from group to group with here a jest and there a word of encouragement, as seemed best suited to those he addressed. Of the women, Mademoiselle de Bellecour and her sharp tongued mother, showed certainly the most undaunted fronts.

Suzanne had not seen her betrothed since the fight upon the stairs. But she was told that he was unhurt, and that he was tending a cousin of his who had been severely wounded in the head.

It was an hour or so after sunrise when he sought her out, and they stood in conversation together—a very jaded pair—looking down from one of the windows upon the stalwart blue-coats that were bivouacked in the quadrangle.

Suddenly on the still morning air came the sound of hoof-beats, and as they looked they espied a man in a cocked hat and an ample black cloak riding briskly up the avenue.

"See?" exclaimed Ombreval; "yonder at last comes the great man we are awaiting—the Commissioner of that rabble they call the National Convention. Now we shall know what fate is reserved for us."

"But what can they do?" she asked.

"It is the fashion to send people of our station to Paris," he replied, "to make a mock of us with an affair they call a trial before they murder us."

She sighed.

"Perhaps this gentleman is more merciful," was the hope she expressed.

"Merciful?" he mocked. "Ma foi, a ravenous tiger may be merciful before one of these. Had your father been wise he had ordered the few of us that remained to charge those soldiers when they entered, and to have met our end upon their bayonets. That would have been a merciful fate compared with the mercy of this so-called Commissioner is likely to extend us."

It seemed to be his way to find fault, and that warp in his character rendered him now as heroic—in words—as he had been erstwhile scornful.

Suzanne shuddered, brave girl though she was.

"Unless you can conceive thoughts of a pleasanter complexion," she said, "I should prefer your silence, M. d'Ombreval."

He laughed in his disdainful way—for he disdained all things, excepting his own person and safety—but before he could make any answer they were joined by the Marquis and his son.

In the courtyard the horseman was now dismounting, and a moment or two later they heard the fall of feet, upon the stairs. A soldier threw open the door, and holding it, announced:

"The Citizen-deputy La Boulaye, Commissioner of the National Convention to the army of General Dumouriez."

"This," mocked Ombreval, to whom the name meant nothing, "is the representative of a Government of strict equality, and he is announced with as much pomp as was ever an ambassador of his murdered Majesty's."

Then a something out of the common in the attitude of his companions arrested his attention. Mademoiselle was staring with eyes full of the most ineffable amazement, her lips parted, and her cheeks whiter than the sleepless night had painted them. The Marquis was scowling in a surprise that seemed no whit less than his daughter's, his head thrust forward, and his jaw fallen. The Vicomte, too, though in a milder degree, offered a countenance that was eloquent with bewilderment. From this silent group Ombreval turned his tired eyes to the door and took stock of the two men that had entered. One of these was Captain Juste, the officer in command of the military; the other was a tall man, with a pale face, an aquiline nose, a firm jaw, and eyes that were very stern—either of habit or because they now rested upon the man who four years ago had used him so cruelly.

He stood a moment in the doorway as if enjoying the amazement which had been sown by his coming. There was no mistaking him. It was the same La Boulaye of four years ago, and yet it was not quite the same. The face had lost its boyishness, and the strenuous life he had lived had scored it with lines that gave him the semblance of a greater age than was his. The old, poetic melancholy that had dwelt in the secretary's countenance was now changed to strength and firmness. Although little known as yet to the world at large, the great ones of the Revolution held him in high esteem, and looked upon him as a power to be reckoned with in the near future. Of Robespierre—who, it was said, had discovered him and brought him to Paris—he was the protege and more than friend, a protection and friendship this which in '93 made any man almost omnipotent in France.

He was dressed in a black riding-suit, relieved only by the white neck-cloth and the tricolour sash of office about his waist. He removed his cocked hat, beneath which the hair was tied in a club with the same scrupulous care as of old.

Slowly he advanced into the salon, and his sombre eyes passed from the Marquis to Mademoiselle. As they rested upon her some of the sternness seemed to fade from their glance. He found in her a change almost as great as that which she had found in him. The lighthearted, laughing girl of nineteen, who had scorned his proffered love when he had wooed her that April morning to such disastrous purpose, was now ripened into a stately woman of three-and-twenty. He had thought his boyish passion dead and buried, and often in the years that were gone had he smiled softly to himself at the memory of his ardour, as we smile at the memory of our youthful follies. Yet now, upon beholding her again, so wondrously transformed, so tall and straight, and so superbly beautiful, he experienced an odd thrill and a weakening of the stern purpose that had brought him to Bellecour.

Then his glance moved on. A moment it rested on the supercilious, high-bred countenance of the Vicomte d'Ombreval, standing with so proprietary an air beside her, then it passed to the kindly old face of Des Cadoux, and he recalled how this gentleman had sought to stay the flogging of him. An instant it hovered on the Marquis, who—haggard of face and with his arm in a sling—was observing him with an expression in which scorn and wonder were striving for the mastery; it seemed to shun the gaze of the pale-faced Vicomte, whose tutor he had been in the old days of his secretaryship, and full and stern it returned at last to settle upon the Marquis.

"Citizen Bellecour," he said, and his voice, like his face, seemed to have changed since last the Marquis had heard it, and to have grown more deep and metallic, "you may marvel, now that you behold the Commissioner who sent a company of soldiers to rescue you and your Chateau from the hands of the mob last night, what purpose I sought to serve by extending to you a protection which none of your order merits, and you least of any, in my eyes."

"The times may have wrought sad and overwhelming changes," answered the Marquis, with cold contempt, "but it has not yet so utterly abased us that we bring ourselves to speculate upon the purposes of the rabble."

A faint crimson flush crept into Caron's sallow cheeks.

"Indeed, I see how little you have changed!" he answered bitterly. "You are of those that will not learn, Citizen. The fault lies here," he added, tapping his head, "and it will remain until we remove the ones with the other. But now for the business that brings me," he proceeded, more briskly. "Four years ago, Citizen Bellecour, you laid your whip across my face in the woods out yonder, and when I spoke of seeking satisfaction action you threatened me with your grooms. I will not speak of your other brutalities on that same day. I will confine myself to that first affront."

"Be brief, sir," cried the Marquis offensively. "Since you have the force to compel us to listen to you, let me beg that you will at least display the generosity of detaining us no longer than you need."

"I will be as brief as it lies within the possibility of words," answered Caron coldly. "I am come, Citizen Bellecour, to demand of you to-day the satisfaction which four years ago you refused me."

"Of me?" cried the Marquis.

"Through the person of your son, the Vicomte, as I asked for it four years ago," said Caron. "You are am old man, Citizen, and I do not fight old men."

"I am yet young enough to cut you into ribbons, you dog, if I were minded to dishonour myself by meeting you." And turning to Ombreval for sympathy, he vented a low laugh of contemptuous wonder.

"Insolence!" sneered Ombreval sympathetically, whilst Mademoiselle stood looking on with cheeks that were growing paler, for that this event would end badly for either her father or her brother she never doubted.

"Citizen Bellecour," said Caron, still very coldly, "you have heard what I propose, as have you also, Citizen-vicomte."

"For myself," began the youth "I am—"

"Silence, Armand!" his father commanded, laying a hand upon his sleeve. "Understand me, citizen-deputy, or citizen-commissioner, or citizen-blackguard or whatever you call your vile self, you are come on a fruitless journey to Bellecour. Neither I nor my son is so lost to the duty which we owe our rank as to so much as dream of acceding to your preposterous request. I think, sir, that you had been better advised to have left the mob to its work last night, if you but restrained it for this purpose."

"Is that your last word?" asked La Boulaye, still calmly weathering that storm of insults.

"My very last, sir."

"There are more ways than one of taking satisfaction for that affront, Citizen Bellecour," rejoined La Boulaye, "and if the course which I now pursue should prove more distasteful to you than that which I last suggested, the blame of it must rest with you." He turned to the bluecoat at the door. "Citizen-soldier, my whip."

There was a sudden movement among the aristocrats—a horrified recoiling—and even Bellecour was shaken out of his splendid arrogance.

"Insolent cur!" exclaimed Ombreval with withering scorn; "to what lengths is presumption driving you?"

"To the length of a horsewhip," answered La Boulaye pleasantly.

He received the whip from the hands of the soldier and he now advanced towards Bellecour, unwinding the lash as he came. Ombreval barred his way with an oath.

"By Heaven: you shall not!" he cried.

"Shall not?" echoed La Boulaye, his lips curling. "You had best stand aside—you that are steeped in musk and fierceness." And before the stern and threatening contempt of La Boulaye's glance the young nobleman fell back. But his place was taken by the Vicomte de Bellecour, who advanced to confront Caron.

"Monsieur la Boulaye," he announced, "I am ready and willing to meet you." And considering the grim alternative with which the Republicans had threatened him, the old Marquis had not the courage to interfere again.

"Ah!" It was an exclamation of satisfaction from the Commissioner. "I imagined that you would change your minds. I shall await you, Citizen, in the garden in five minutes' time."

"I shall not keep you waiting, Monsieur," was the Vicomte's answer.

Very formally La Boulaye bowed and left the room accompanied by the officer and followed by the soldier.

"Mon Dieu!" gasped the Marquise, fanning herself as the door closed after the Republicans. "Open me a window or I shall stifle! How the place reeks with them. I am a calm woman, Messieurs, but, on my honour, had he addressed any of you by his odious title of 'citizen' again, I swear that I had struck him with my own hands."

There were some that laughed. But Mademoiselle was not of those.

Her eyes travelled to her brother's pale face and weakly frame, and her glance was such a glance as we bend upon the beloved dead, for in him she saw one who was going inevitably to his death.



CHAPTER VII. LA BOULAYE DISCHARGES A DEBT

Along the northern side of the Chateau ran a terrace bordered by a red sandstone balustrade, and below this the Italian garden, so called perhaps in consequence of the oddly clipped box-trees, its only feature that suggested Italy. At the far end of this garden there was a strip of even turf that might have been designed for a fencing ground, and which Caron knew of old. Thither he led Captain Juste, and there in the pale sunshine of that February morning they awaited the arrival of the Vicomte and his sponsor.

But the minutes went by and still they waited-five, ten, fifteen minutes elapsed, yet no one came. Juste was on the point of returning within to seek the reason of this delay when steps sounded on the terrace above. But they were accompanied by the rustle of a gown, and presently it was Mademoiselle who appeared before them. The two men eyed her with astonishment, which in the case of La Boulaye, was tempered by another feeling.

"Monsieur la Boulaye," said she, her glance wandering towards the Captain, "may I speak with you alone?"

Outwardly impassive the Commissioner bowed.

"Your servant, Citoyenne," said he, removing his cocked hat. "Juste, will you give us leave?"

"You will find me on the terrace when you want me, Citizen-deputy," answered the officer, and saluting, he departed.

For a moment or two after he was gone Suzanne and Caron stood confronting each other in silence. She seemed smitten with a sudden awkwardness, and she looked away from him what time he waited, hat in hand, the chill morning breeze faintly stirring a loose strand of his black hair.

"Monsieur," she faltered at last, "I am come to intercede."

At that a faint smile hovered a second on the Republican's thin lips.

"And is the noblesse of France fallen so low that it sends its women to intercede for the lives of its men? But, perhaps," he added cynically, "it had not far to fall."

Her cheeks reddened. His insult to her class acted upon her as a spur and overcame the irresoluteness that seemed to have beset her.

"To insult the fallen, sir, is worthy of the new regime, whose representative you are, Enfine! We must take it, I suppose, as we take everything else in these disordered times—with a bent head and a meek submission."

"From the little that I have seen, Citoyenne," he answered, very coldly, roused in his turn, "it rather seems that you take things on your knees and with appeals for mercy."

"Monsieur," she cried, and her eyes now met his in fearless anger, "if you persist in these gratuitous insults I shall leave you."

He laughed in rude amusement, and put on his hat. The spell that for a moment her beauty had cast over him when first she had appeared had been attenuating. It now broke suddenly, and as he covered himself his whole manner changed.

"Is this interview of my seeking?" he asked. "It is your brother I am awaiting. Name of a name, Citoyenne, do you think my patience inexhaustible? The ci-devant Vicomte promised to attend me here. It was the boast of your order that whatever sins you might be guilty of you never broke your word. Have you lost even that virtue, which served you as a cloak for untold vices? And is your brother fled into the woods whilst you, his sister, come here to intercede with me for his wretched life? Pah! In the old days you aroused my hatred by your tyrannies and your injustices; to-day you weary and disgust me by your ineffable cowardices, from that gentleman in Paris who now calls himself Orleans-Egalite downwards."

"Monsieur," she began But he was not yet done. His cheeks were flushed with a reflection of the heart within.

"Citoyenne, I have a debt to discharge, and I will discharge it in full. Intercessions are vain with me. I cannot forget. Send me your brother within ten minutes to meet me here, man to man, and he shall have—all of you shall have—the chance that lies in such an encounter. But woe unto every man at Bellecour if he should fail me. Citoyenne, you know my mind."

But she overlooked the note of dismissal in his voice.

"You speak of a debt that you must discharge," said she, with no whit less heat than he had exhibited. "You refer to the debt of vengeance which you look to discharge by murdering that boy, my brother. But do you not owe me a debt also?"

"You?" he questioned. "My faith! Unless it be a debt of scorn, I know of none."

"Aye," she returned wistfully, "you are like the rest. You have a long memory for injuries, but a short one for benefits. Had it not been for me, Monsieur, you would not be here now to demand this that you call satisfaction. Have you forgotten how I—"

"No," he broke in. "I well remember how you sought to stay them when they were flogging me in the yard there. But you came too late. You might have come before, for from the balcony above you had been watching my torture. But you waited overlong. I was cast out for dead.".

She flashed him a searching glance, as though she sought to read his thoughts, and to ascertain whether he indeed believed what he was saying.

"Cast out for dead?" she echoed. "And by whose contrivance? By mine, M. la Boulaye. When they were cutting you down they discovered that you were not dead, and but that I bribed the men to keep it secret and carry you to Duhamel's house, they had certainly informed my father and you would have been finished off."

His eyes opened wide now, and into them there came a troubled look—the look of one who is endeavouring to grasp an elusive recollection.

"Ma foi," he muttered. "It seems to come to me as if I had heard something of the sort in a dream. It was—" He paused, and his brows were knit a moment. Then he looked up suddenly, and gradually his face cleared. "Why, yes—I have it!" he exclaimed. "It was in Duhamel's house. While I was lying half unconscious on the couch I heard one of the men telling Duhamel that you had paid them to carry me there and to keep a secret."

"And you had forgotten that?" she asked, with the faintest note of contempt.

"Not forgotten," he answered, "for it was never really there to be remembered. That I had heard such words had more than once occurred to me, but I have always looked upon it as the recollection of something that I had dreamt. I had never looked upon it as a thing that had had a real happening."

"How, then, did you explain your escape?"

"I always imagined that I had been assumed dead."

There was a brief spell of silence. Then—

"And now that you know, Monsieur—?"

She left the question unfinished, and held out her hands to him in a gesture of supplication. His face paled slightly and overclouded. Her influence, against which so long he had steeled himself, reinforced by the debt in which she had shown him that he stood towards her, was prevailing with him despite himself. Stirred suddenly out of the coldness that he had hitherto assumed, he caught the outstretched hands and drew her a step nearer. That was his undoing. Strong man though he unquestionably was, like many another strong man his strength seemed to fall from him at a woman's touch. He had led so austere and stern a life during the past four years; of women he had but had the most passing of glances, and intercourse with none save an old female who acted as his housekeeper in Paris. And here was a woman who was not only beautiful, but the woman who years ago had embodied all his notions of what was most perfect in womanhood; the woman who ever since, and despite all that was past, had reigned in his heart and mind almost in spite of himself, almost unknown to him.

The touch of her hand now, the closeness of her presence, the faint perfume that reached him from her, and that was to him as a symbol of her inherent sweetness, the large blue eyes meeting his in expectation, and the imploring half-pout of her lips, were all seductions against which he had not been human had he prevailed.

Very white in the intensity of the long-quiescent passion she had resuscitated, he cried:

"Mademoiselle, what shall I say to you?"

The four years that were gone seemed suddenly to have slipped away. It was as if they stood again by the brook in the park on that April morn when first he had dared to word his presumptuous love. Even the vocabulary of the Republic was forgotten, and the interdicted title of "Mademoiselle" fell naturally from his lips.

"Say that you can be generous," she implored him softly. "Say that you prefer the debt you owe to the injury you received."

"You do not know the sacrifice you ask," he exclaimed still fighting with himself. "I have waited four years for this, and now—"

"He is my brother," she whispered, in so wonderful a tone that words which of themselves may have seemed no argument at all became the crowning argument of her intercession.

"Soit!" he consented. "For your sake, Mademoiselle, and in payment of the debt I owe you, I will go as I came. I shall not see the Citizen-marquis again. But do you tell him from me that if he sets any value on his life, he had best shake the dust of France from his feet. Too long already has he tarried, and at any moment those may arrive who will make him emigrate not only out of France but out of the world altogether. Besides, the peasantry that has risen once may rise again, and I shall not be here to protect him from its violence. Tell him he had best depart at once."

"Monsieur, I am grateful—very, very deeply grateful. I can say no more. May Heaven reward you. I shall pray the good God to watch over you always. Adieu, Monsieur!"

He stood looking at her a moment still retaining his hold of her hands.

"Adieu, Mademoiselle," he said at last. Then, very slowly—as if so that realising his intent she might frustrate it were she so minded—he raised her right hand. It was not withdrawn, and so he bent low, and pressed his lips upon it.

"God guard you, Mademoiselle," he said at last, and if they were strange words for a Republican and a Deputy, it must be remembered that his bearing during the past few moments had been singularly unlike a Republican's.

He released her hand, and stepping back, doffed his hat. With a final inclination of the head, she turned and walked away in the direction of the terrace.

At a distance La Boulaye followed, so lost in thought that he did not observe Captain Juste until the fellow's voice broke upon his ear.

"You have been long enough, Citizen-deputy," was the soldier's greeting. "I take it there is to be no duel."

"I make you my compliments upon the acuteness of your perception," answered La Boulaye tartly. "You are right. There is to be no encounter."

Juste's air was slightly mocking, and words of not overdelicate banter rose to his lips, to be instantly quelled by La Boulaye.

"Let your drums beat a rally, Citizen-captain," he commanded briskly. "We leave Bellecour in ten minutes.".

And indeed, in less than that time the blue-coats were swinging briskly down the avenue. In the rear rode La Boulaye, his cloak wrapped about him, his square chin buried in his neck-cloth, and his mind deep in meditation.

From a window of the Chateau the lady who was the cause of the young Revolutionist's mental absorption watched the departing soldiers. On either side of her stood Ombreval and her father.

"My faith, little one," said Bellecour good-humouredly. "I wonder what magic you have exercised to rid us of that infernal company."

"Women have sometimes a power of which men know nothing," was her cryptic answer.

Ombreval turned to her with a scowl of sudden suspicion.

"I trust, Mademoiselle, that you did not—" he stopped short. His thoughts were of a quality that defied polite utterance.

"That I did not what, Monsieur?" she asked.

"I trust you remembered that you are to become the Vicomtesse d'Ombreval" he answered, constructing his sentence differently.

"Monsieur!" exclaimed Bellecour angrily.

"I was chiefly mindful of the fact that I had my brother's life to save," said the girl, very coldly, her eye resting upon her betrothed in a glance of so much contempt that it forced him into an abashed silence.

In her mind she was contrasting this supercilious, vacillating weakling with the stern, strong man who lode yonder. A sigh fluttered across her lips. Had things but been different. Had Ombreval been the Revolutionist and La Boulaye the Vicomte, how much better pleased might she not have been. But since it was not so, why sigh? It was not as if she had loved this La Boulaye. How was that possible? Was he not of the canaille, basely born, and a Revolutionist—the enemy of her order—in addition? It were a madness to even dream of the possibility of such a thing, for Suzanne de Bellecour came of too proud a stock, and knew too well the respect that was due to it.



CHAPTER VIII. THE INVALIDS AT BOISVERT

There had been friction between the National Convention and General Dumouriez, who, though a fine soldier, was a remarkably indifferent Republican. The Convention had unjustly ordered the arrest of his commissariat officers, Petit-Jean and Malus, and in other ways irritated a man whose patience was never of the longest.

On the eve, however, of war with Holland, the great ones in Paris had suddenly perceived their error, and had sought—despite the many enemies, from Marat downwards, that Dumouriez counted among their numbers—to conciliate a general whose services they found that they could not dispense with. This conciliation was the business upon which the Deputy La Boulaye had been despatched to Antwerp, and as an ambassador he proved signally successful, as much by virtue of the excellent terms he was empowered to offer as in consequence of the sympathy and diplomacy he displayed in offering them.

The great Republican General started upon his campaign in the Low Countries as fully satisfied as under the circumstances he could hope to be. Malus and Petit-Jean were not only enlarged but reinstated, he was promised abundant supplies of all descriptions, and he was assured that the Republic approved and endorsed his plan of campaign.

La Boulaye, his mission satisfactorily discharged, turned homewards once more, and with an escort of six men and a corporal he swiftly retraced his steps through that blackened, war-ravaged country. They had slept a night at Mons, and they were within a short three leagues of French soil when they chanced to ride towards noon into the little hamlet of Boisvert. Probably they would have gone straight through without drawing rein, but that, as they passed the Auberge de l'Aigle, La Boulaye espied upon the green fronting the wayside hostelry a company of a half-dozen soldiers playing at bowls with cannon-balls.

The sight brought Caron to a sudden halt, and he sat his horse observing them and wondering how it chanced that these men should find themselves so far from the army. Three of them showed signs of having been recently wounded. One carried his arm in a sling, another limped painfully and by the aid of a stick, whilst the head of the third was swathed in bandages. But most remarkable were they by virtue of their clothes. One fellow—he of the bandaged head—wore a coat of yellow brocaded silk, which, in spite of a rent in the shoulder, and sundry stains of wine and oil, was unmistakably of a comparative newness. Beneath this appeared the nankeens and black leggings of a soldier. Another covered his greasy locks with a three-cornered hat, richly laced in gold. A third flaunted under his ragged blue coat a gold-broidered waistcoat and a Brussels cravat. A valuable ring flashed from the grimy finger of a fourth, who, instead of the military white nankeens, wore a pair of black silk breeches. There was one—he of the injured arm—resplendent in a redingote of crimson velvet, whilst he of the limp supported himself upon a gold-headed cane of ebony, which was in ludicrous discord with the tattered blue coat, the phrygian cap, and the toes that peeped through his broken boots.

They paused in their game to inspect, in their turn, the newcomers, and to La Boulaye it seemed that their glances were not free from uneasiness.

"A picturesque company on my life," he mused aloud. Then beckoned the one in the crimson coat.

"Hola, Citizen," he called to him.

The fellow hesitated a moment, then shuffled forward with a sullen air, and stood by Caron's stirrup.

"In God's name, what are you and who are you?" the Deputy demanded.

"We are invalided soldiers from the army of Dumouriez," the man answered him.

"But what are you doing here, at Boisvert?"

"We are in hospital, Citizen."

"Yonder?" asked La Boulaye derisively, pointing with his whip to the "Eagle Inn."

The fellow nodded.

"Yes, Citizen, yonder," he answered curtly.

La Boulaye looked surprised. Then his eyes strayed to the others on the green.

"But you are not all invalids?" he questioned.

"Many of us are convalescent."

"Convalescent? But those three braves yonder are something more than convalescent. They are as well as I am. Why do they not rejoin the troops?"

The fellow looked up with a scowl.

"We take our orders from our officer," he answered sourly.

"Ah!" quoth the Deputy. "There is someone in charge here, then? Who may it be?"

"Captain Charlot," the fellow answered, with an impudent air, which clearly seemed to ask: "What have you to say to that?"

"Captain Charlot?" echoed La Boulaye, in astonishment, for the name was that of the sometime peasant of Bellecour, who had since risen in life, and who, as an officer, had in a few months acquired a brilliant fame for deeds of daring. "Charlot Tardivet?" he inquired.

"Is there any other Captain Charlot in the army of the Republic?" the fellow asked insolently.

"Is he invalided too?" inquired Caron, without heeding the soldier's offensiveness of manner.

"He was severely wounded at Jemappes," was the answer.

"At Jemappes? But, voyons my friend, Jemappes was fought three months ago."

"Why, so all the world knows. What then? The General sent Captain Charlot here to rest and be cured, giving him charge of the invalided soldiers who came with him and of others who were already here."

"And of these," cried La Boulaye, his amazement growing, "have none returned to Dumouriez?"

"Have I not said that we are invalids?"

Caron eyed him with cold contempt.

"How many of you are there?" he asked. And for all that the man began to mislike this questioning, he had not the hardihood to refuse an answer to the stern tones of that stern man on horseback.

"Some fifty, or thereabouts."

La Boulaye said nothing for a moment, then touching the fellow's sleeve with his whip.

"How came you into this masquerade?" he inquired.

"Ma foi," answered the man, shrugging his shoulders, "we were in rags. The commissariat was demoralised, and supplies were not forthcoming. We had to take what we could find, or else go naked."

"And where did you find these things?"

"Diable! Will your questions never come to an end, Citizen? Would you not be better advised in putting them to the Captain himself?"

"Why, so I will. Where is he?"

In the distance a cloud of dust might be perceived above the long, white road. The soldier espied it as La Boulaye put his question.

"I am much at fault if he does not come yonder." And he pointed to the dust-cloud.

"I think," said La Boulaye, turning to his men, "that we will drink a cup of wine at the 'Eagle Inn.'"

Mean though the place was, it was equipped with a stable-yard, to which admittance was gained by a porte-cochere on the right. Wheeling his horse, La Boulaye, without another word to the soldier he had been questioning, rode through it, followed by his escort.

The hostess, who came forward to receive them, was a tall, bony woman of very swarthy complexion, with beady eyes and teeth prominent as a rat's. But if ill-favoured, she seemed, at least, well-intentioned, in addition to which the tricolour scarf of office round La Boulaye's waist was a thing that commanded respect and servility, however much it might be the insignia of a Government of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

She bade the ostler care for their horses, and she brought them her best wine, seeking under an assumed geniality to conceal the unrest born of her speculations as to what might happen did Captain Charlot return ere the Deputy departed.

Charlot did return. Scarce were they seated at their wine when the confused sounds that from the distance had been swelling took more definite shape. The hostess looked uneasy as La Boulaye rose and went to the door of the inn. Down the road marched now a numerous company from which—to judge by their odd appearance—the players at bowls had been drawn. They numbered close upon threescore, and in the centre of them came a great lumbering vehicle, which puzzled La Boulaye. He drew away from the door and posted himself at the window, so that unobserved he might ascertain what was toward. Into the courtyard came that company, pele-mele, an odd mixture of rags and gauds, yet a very lusty party, vigorous of limb and loud of voice. With them came the coach, and there was such a press about the gates that La Boulaye looked to see some of them crushed to death. But with a few shouts and oaths and threats at one another they got through in safety, and the unwieldy carriage was brought to a standstill.

They were clamouring about its doors, and to La Boulaye it seemed that they were on the point of quarrelling among themselves, some wanting to enter the coach and others seeking to restrain them, when through the porte-cochere rode Charlot Tardivet himself.

He barked out a sharp word of command, and they grew silent and still, testifying to a discipline which said much for the strength of character of their captain. He was strangely altered, was this Tardivet, and his appearance now was worthy of his followers. Under a gaudily-laced, three-cornered hat his hair hung dishevelled and unkempt, like wisps of straw. He wore a coat of flowered black silk, with a heavy gold edging, and a very bright plum-coloured waistcoat showed above the broad tricolour scarf that sashed his middle. His breeches were white (or had been white in origin), and disappeared into a pair of very lustrous lacquered boots that rose high above his knees. A cavalry sabre of ordinary dimensions hung from a military belt, and a pistol-butt, peeping from his sash, completed the astonishing motley of his appearance. For the rest, he was the same tall and well-knit fellow; but there was more strength in his square chin, more intelligence in the keen blue eyes, and, alas! more coarseness in the mouth, which bristled with a reddish beard of some days' growth.

La Boulaye watched him with interest. He had become intimate with him in the old days in Paris, whither Tardivet had gone, and where, fired by the wrongs he had suffered, he had been one of the apostles of the Revolution. When the frontiers of France had been in danger Tardivet had taken up arms, and by the lustre which he had shed upon the name of Captain Charlotas he was come to be called throughout the army—he had eclipsed the fame of Citizen Tardivet, the erstwhile prophet of liberty. Great changes these in the estate of one who had been a simple peasant; but then the times were times of great changes. Was not Santerre, the brewer, become a great general, and was not Robespierre, the obscure lawyer of Arras, by way of becoming a dictator? Was it, therefore, wonderful that Charlot should have passed from peasant to preacher, from preacher to soldier, and from soldier to—what?

A shrewd suspicion was being borne in upon La Boulaye's mind as he stood by that window, his men behind him watching also, with no less intentness and some uneasiness for themselves—for they misliked the look of the company.

In five seconds Charlot had restored order in the human chaos without. In five minutes there were but ten men left in the yard. The others were gone at Charlot's bidding—a bidding, couched in words that went to confirm La Boulaye's suspicions.

"You will get back to your posts at once," he had said. "Because we have made one rich capture is no reason why you should neglect the opportunities of making others no less rich. You, Moulinet, with twenty men, shall patrol the road to Charleroi, and get as near France as possible. You Boligny, station yourself in the neighbourhood of Conde, with ten men, and guard the road from Valenciennes. You, Aigreville, spread your twenty men from Conde to Tournay, and watch the frontiers closely. Make an inspection of any captures you may take, and waste no time in bringing hither worthless ones. Now go. I will see that each man's share of this is assured him. March!"

There were some shouts of "Vive la Republique!" some of "Vive le Captaine Charlot!" and so they poured out of the yard, and left him to give a few hurried directions to the ten men that remained.

"Sad invalids these, as I live!" exclaimed La Boulaye over his shoulder to his followers. "Ha! There is my friend of the red redingote!"

The fellow with the bandaged head had approached Charlot and was tugging at his sleeve.

"Let be, you greasy rascal," the Captain snapped at him, to add: "What do you say? A Deputy? Where?" The fellow pointed with his thumb in the direction of the hostelry.

"Sacred name of a name!" growled Charlot, and, turning suddenly from the men to whom he had been issuing directions, he sprang up the steps and entered the inn. As he crossed the threshold of the common room he was confronted by the tall figure of La Boulaye.

"I make you my compliments, Charlot," was Caron's greeting, "upon the vigorous health that appears to prevail in your hospital."

Tardivet stood a moment within the doorway, staring at the Deputy. Then his brow cleared, and with a laugh, at once of welcome and amusement, he strode forward and put out his hand.

"My good Caron!" he cried. "To meet you at Boisvert is a pleasure I had not looked for."

"Are you so very sure," asked La Boulaye sardonically, as he took the outstretched hand, "that it is a pleasure?"

"How could it be else, old friend? By St. Guillotine!" he added, clapping the Deputy on the back, "you shall come to my room, and we will broach a bottle of green seal."

In some measure of wonder, La Boulaye permitted himself to be led up the crazy stairs to a most untidy room above, which evidently did duty as the Captain's parlour. A heavy brass lamp, hanging from the ceiling, a few untrustworthy chairs and a deal table, stained and unclean, were the only articles of furniture. But in almost every corner there were untidy heaps of garments Of all sorts and conditions; strewn about the floor were other articles of apparel, a few weapons, a saddle, and three or four boots; here an empty bottle, lying on its side, yonder a couple of full ones by the hearth; an odd book or two and an infinity of playing cards, cast there much as a sower scatters his seeds upon the ground.

There may be a hundred ways of apprehending the character of a man, but none perhaps is more reliable than the appearance of his dwelling, and no discerning person that stepped into Captain Tardivet's parlour could long remain in doubt of its inhabitant's pursuits and habits.

When Dame Capoulade had withdrawn, after bringing them their wine and casting a few logs upon the fire, La Boulaye turned his back to the hearth and confronted his host.

"Why are you not with the army, Charlot?" he asked in a tone which made the question sound like a demand.

"Have they not told you," rejoined the other airily, engrossed in filling the glasses.

"I understand you were sent here to recover from a wound you received three months ago at Jemappes, and to take charge of other invalided soldiers. But seemingly, your invalids do not number more than a half-dozen out of the fifty or sixty men that are with you. How is it then, that you do not return with these to Dumouriez?"

"Because I can serve France better here," answered Charlot, "and at the same time enrich myself and my followers."

"In short," returned La Boulaye coldly, "because you have degenerated from a soldier into a brigand."

Charlot looked up, and for just a second his glance was not without uneasiness. Then he laughed. He unbuckled his sword and tossed it into a corner, throwing his hat after it.

"It was ever your way to take extreme views, Caron," he observed, with a certain whimsical regret of tone. "That, no doubt, is what has made a statesman of you. You had chosen more wisely had you elected to serve the Republic with your sword instead. Come, my friend," and he pointed to the wine, "let us pledge the Nation."

La Boulaye shrugged his shoulders slightly, and sighed. In the end he came forward and took the wine.

"Long live the Republic!" was Charlot's toast, and with a slight inclination of the head La Boulaye drained his glass.

"It is likely to live without you, Charlot, unless you mend your conduct."

"Diable!" snapped the Captain, a trifle peevishly. "Can you not understand that in my own way I am serving my country. You have called me a brigand. But you might say the same of General Dumouriez himself. How many cities has he not sacked?"

"That is the way of war."

"And so is this. He makes war upon the enemies of France that dwell in cities, whilst I, in a smaller way, make war upon those that travel in coaches. I confine myself to emigres—these damned aristocrats whom it is every good Frenchman's duty to aid in stamping out. Over the frontiers they come with their jewels, their plate, and their money-chests. To whom belongs this wealth? To France. Too long already have they withheld from the sons of the soil that which belongs equally to them, and now they have the effrontery to attempt to carry these riches out of the country. Would any true Republican dare to reproach me for what I do? I am but seizing that which belongs to France, and here dividing it among the good patriots that are with me, the soldiers that have bled for France."

"A specious argument," sneered La Boulaye.

"Specious enough to satisfy the Convention itself if ever I should be called to task," answered Charlot, with heat. "Do you propose to draw the attention of the Executive to my doings?"

La Boulaye's grey eyes regarded him steadily for a moment.

"Know you of any reason why I should not?" he asked.

"Yes, Caron, I do," was the ready answer. "I am well aware of the extent of your power with the Mountain. In Paris I can see that it might go hard with me if you were minded that it should, and you were able to seize me. On the other hand, that such arguments that I have advanced to you would be acceptable to the Government I do not doubt. But whilst they would approve of this that you call brigandage, I also do not doubt that they would claim that the prizes I have seized are by right the property of the Convention, and they might compel me to surrender them. Thus they would pass from my hands into those of some statesman-brigand, who, under the plea of seizing these treasures for the coffers of the nation, would transfer them to his own. Would you rather help such an one to profit than me, Caron? Have you so far forgotten how we suffered together—almost in the self-same cause—at Bellecour, in the old days? Have you forgotten the friendship that linked us later, in Paris, when the Revolution was in its dawn? Have you forgotten what I have endured at the hands of this infernal class that you can feel no sympathy for me? Caron, it is a measure of revenge, and as there is a Heaven, a very mild one. Me they robbed of more than life; them I deprive but of their jewels and their plate, turning them destitute upon the world. Bethink you of my girl-wife, Caron," he added, furiously, "and of how she died of grief and shame a short three months after our hideous nuptials. God in Heaven! When the memory of it returns to me I marvel at my own forbearance. I marvel that I do not take every man and woman of them that fall into my hands and flog them to death as they would have flogged you when you sought—alas to so little purpose—to intervene on my behalf."

He grew silent and thoughtful, and the expression of his face was not nice. At last: "Have I given you reason enough," he asked, "why you should not seek to thwart me?"

"Why, yes," answered La Boulaye, "more than was necessary. I am desolated that I should have brought you to re-open a sorrow that I thought was healed."

"So it is, Caron. How it is I do not know. Perhaps it is my nature; perhaps it is that in youth sorrow is seldom long-enduring; perhaps it is the strenuous life I have lived and the changes that have been wrought in me—for, after all, there is a little in this Captain Tardivet that is like the peasant poor Marie took to husband, four years ago. I am no longer the same man, and among the other things that I have put from me are the sorrows that were of the old Charlot. But some memories cannot altogether die, and if to-day I no longer mourn that poor child, yet the knowledge of the debt that lies 'twixt the noblesse of France and me is ever present, and I neglect no opportunity of discharging a part of it. But enough of that, Caron. Tell me of yourself. It is a full twelvemonth since last we met, and in that time, from what I have heard, you have done much and gone far. Tell me of it, Caron."

They drew their chairs to the hearth, and they sat talking so long that the early February twilight came down upon them while they were still at their reminiscences. La Boulaye had intended reaching Valenciennes that night; but rather than journey forward in the dark he now proposed to lie at Boisvert, a resolution in which he did not lack for encouragement from Charlot.



CHAPTER IX. THE CAPTIVES

Amid the sordid surroundings of Charlot's private quarters the Captain and the Deputy supped that evening. The supper sorted well with the house—a greasy, ill-cooked meal that proved little inviting to the somewhat fastidious La Boulaye. But the wine, plundered, no doubt, in common with the goblets out of which they drank it—was more than good, and whilst La Boulaye showed his appreciation of it, Charlot abused it like a soldier. They sat facing each other across the little deal table, whose stains were now hidden by a cloth, and to light them they had four tapers set in silver candlesticks of magnificent workmanship, and most wondrous weight, which Tardivet informed his guest had been the property of a ci-devant prince of the blood.

As the night wore on Captain Charlot grew boisterous and more confidential. He came at length to speak of the last capture they had made.

"I have taken prizes, Caron," said he, "which a king might not despise. But to-day—" He raised his eyes to the ceiling and wagged his head.

"Well?" quoth La Boulaye. "What about to-day?"

"I have made a capture worth more than all the others put together. It was an indifferent-looking berline, and my men were within an ace of allowing it to pass. But I have a nose, mon cher"—and he tapped the organ with ludicrous significance—"and, bon Dieu, what affair! I can smell an aristocrat a league off. Down upon that coach I swooped like a hawk upon a sparrow. Within it sat two women, thickly veiled, and I give you my word that in a sense I pitied them, for not a doubt of it, but they were in the act of congratulating themselves upon their escape from France. But sentiment may become fatal if permitted to interfere with enterprise. Stifling my regrets I desired them to alight, and they being wise obeyed me without demur. I allowed them to retain their veils. I sought the sight of things other than women's faces, and a brief survey of the coach showed me where to bestow my attention. I lifted the back seat. It came up like the lid of the chest it was, and beneath it I discovered enough gold and silver plate to outweigh in value almost everything that I had ever taken. But that was by no means all. Under the front seat there was a chest of gold—louis d'ors they were, some two or three thousand at least—and, besides that, a little iron-bound box of gems which in itself was worth more than all the rest of the contents of that treasure-casket of a coach. I tell you, Caron, I dropped the lid of that seat in some haste, for I was not minded that my men should become as wise as I. I stepped down and bade, the women re-enter, and hither under strong escort I have brought them."

"And these treasures?" asked La Boulaye.

"They are still in the coach below, with the women. I have told these that they shall spend the night there. To-morrow I shall see to them and give them their liberty—which is a more generous proceeding than might befall them at the hands of another. When they are gone comes the division of the spoil." He closed one eye slowly, in a very ponderous wink. "To my men I shall relegate the gold and silver plate as well as the money. For myself I shall only retain the little iron-bound box. My followers will account me more than generous and themselves more than satisfied. As for me, La Boulaye—by St. Guillotine, I am tempted to emigrate also and set up as an aristocrat myself in Prussia or England, for in that little box there is something more than a fortune. I asked you to-day whether you were minded to lay information against me in Paris. My faith, I am little concerned whether you do or not, for I think that before you can reach Paris, Captain Charlot Tardivet will be no more than a name in the Republican army. Abroad I shall call myself Charlot du Tardivet, and I shall sleep in fine linen and live on truffles and champagne. Caron, your health!"

He drained his glass, and laughed softly to himself as he set it down.

"Do you trust your men?" asked La Boulaye.

"Eh? Trust them? Name of a name! They know me. I have placed the ten most faithful ones on guard. They answer to the rest of us with their necks for the safety of their charge. Come hither, Caron."

He rose somewhat unsteadily, and lurched across to the window. La Boulaye followed him, and gazing out under his indication, he beheld the coach by the blaze of a fire which the men had lighted to keep them from freezing at their post.

"Does that look secure?"

"Why, yes—secure enough. But if those fellows were to take it into their heads that it would be more profitable to share the prize among ten than among sixty?"

"Secreanom!!" swore Charlot impatiently. "You do my wits poor credit. For what do you take me? Have I gone through so much, think you, without learning how little men are to be trusted? Faugh! Look at the porte-cochere. The gates are closed—aye, and locked, mon cher, and the keys are here, in my pocket. Do you imagine they are to be broken through without arousing anyone? And then, the horses. They are in the stables over there, and again, the keys are in my pocket. So that, you see, I do not leave everything to the honesty of my ten most faithful ones."

"You have learned wisdom, not a doubt of it," laughed the Deputy.

"In a hard school, Caron," answered the Captain soberly. "Aye, name of a name, in a monstrous hard school."

He turned from the window, and the light of the tapers falling on his face, showed it heavily scored with lines of pain, testifying to the ugly memories which the Deputy's light words had evoked. Then suddenly he laughed, half-bitterly, half humourously.

"La, la!" said he. "The thing's past. Charlot Tardivet the bridegroom of Bellecour and Captain Charlot of Dumouriez' army are different men-very different."

He strode back to the table, filled his goblet, and gulped down the wine. Then he crossed to the fire and stood with his back to La Boulaye for a spell. When next he faced his companion all signs of emotion had cleared from his countenance. It was again the callous, reckless face of Captain Charlot, rendered a trifle more reckless and a trifle more callous by the wine-flush on his cheeks and the wine-glitter in his eye.

"Caron" said he, with a half-smile, "shall we have these ladies in to supper?"

"God forbid!" ejaculated La Boulaye.

"Nay, but I will," the other insisted, and he moved across to the window.

As he passed him, La Boulaye laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

"Not that, Charlot," he begged impressively, his dark face very set. "Plunder them, turn them destitute upon the world, if you will, but remember, at least, that they are women."

Charlot laughed in his face.

"It is something to remember, is it not? They remembered it of our women, these aristocrats!"

There was so much ugly truth in the Captain's words, and such a suggestion of just, if bitter, retribution in his mental attitude, that La Boulaye released his arm, at a loss for further arguments wherewith to curb him.

"Paydi!" Charlot continued, "I have a mind for a frolic. Does not justice give me the right to claim that these aristocrats shall amuse me?"

With an oath he turned abruptly, and pulled the casement open.

"Guyot!" he called, and a voice from below made answer to him.

"You will make my compliments to the citoyennes in the coach, Guyot, and tell them that the Citizen-captain Tardivet requests the honour of their company to supper."

Then he went to the door, and calling Dame Capoulade, he bade her set two fresh covers; in which he was expeditiously obeyed. La Boulaye stood by the fire, his pale face impassive now and almost indifferent. Charlot returned to the window to learn from Guyot that the citoyennes thanked the Citizen-captain, but that they were tired and sought to be excused, asking nothing better than to be allowed to remain at peace in their carriage.

"Sacred name of a name!" he croaked, a trifle thickly, for the wine he had taken was mastering him more and more. "Are they defying us? Since they will not accept an invitation, compel them to obey a command. Bring them up at once, Guyot."

"At once, Captain," was the answer, and Guyot went about the business.

Charlot closed the window and approached the table.

"They are coquettish these scented dames," he mocked, as he poured himself out some wine. "You are not drinking Caron."

"It is perhaps wise that one of us should remain sober," answered the Deputy quietly, for in spite of a certain sympathy with the feelings by which Charlot was actuated, he was in dead antipathy to this baiting of women that seemed toward.

Charlot made no answer. He drained his goblet and set it down with a bang. Then he flung himself into a chair, and stretching out his long, booted legs he began to hum the refrain of the "Marseillaise." Thus a few moments went by. Then there came a sound of steps upon the creaking stairs, and the gruff voice of the soldier urging the ladies to ascend more speedily.

At last the door opened and two women entered, followed by Guyot. Charlot lurched to his feet.

"You have come, Mesdames," said he, forgetting the mode of address prescribed by the Convention, and clumsily essaying to make a leg. "Be welcome! Guyot, go to the devil."

For a moment or two after the soldier's departure the women remained in the shadow, then, at the Captain's invitation, which they dared not disobey, they came forward into the halo of candle-light. Simultaneously La Boulaye caught his breath, and took a step forward. Then he drew back again until his shoulders touched the overmantel and there he remained, staring at the newcomers, who as yet, did not appear to have observed him.

They wore no headgear, and their scarfs were thrown back upon their shoulders, revealing to the stricken gaze of La Boulaye the countenances of the Marquise de Bellecour and her daughter.

And now, as they advanced into the light, Charlot recognised them too. In the act of offering a chair he stood, arrested, his eyes devouring first one, then the other of then, with a glance that seemed to have grown oddly sobered. The flush died from his face, and his lips twitched like those of a man who seeks to control his emotions. Then slowly the colour crept back into his cheeks, a curl of mockery appeared on the coarse mouth, and the eyes beamed evilly.

They tense silence was broken by the bang with which he dropped the chair he had half raised. As he leaned forward now, La Boulaye read in his face the thought that had leapt into the Captain's mind, and had it been a question of any woman other than Zuzanne de Bellecour, the Deputy might have indulged in the consideration of what a wonderful retribution was there here. Into the hands of the man whose bride the Marquis de Bellecour had torn from him were now delivered by a wonderful chance the wife and daughter of that same Bellecour. And at Boisvert this briganding Captain was as much to-night the lord of life and death, and all besides, as had been the Marquis of Bellecour of old. But he pondered not these things, for all that the stern irony of the coincidence did not escape him. That evil look in Charlot's eyes, that sinister smile on Charlot's lips, more than suggested what manner of vengeance the Captain would exact—and that, for the time, was matter enough to absorb the Deputy's whole attention.

And the women did not see him. They were too much engrossed in the figure fronting them, and agonisedly, with cheeks white and bosoms heaving, they waited, in their dread suspense. At last, drawing himself to the full of his stalwart height, the Captain laughed grimly and spoke.

"Mesdames," said he, his very tone an insult in its brutal derision, "we Republicans have abolished God, and until tonight I have held the Republic right, arguing that if a God there was, His leanings must be aristocratic, since He never seemed to concern Himself with the misfortunes of the lowly-born. But tonight, mesdames, I know that the Republic is at fault. There is a God—a God of justice and retribution, who has delivered you, of all people in the world, into my hands. Look on me well, Ci-devant Marquise de Bellecour, and you, Mademoiselle de Bellecour. Look in my face and see if you know me again. Not you. You never heeded me as you rode by in those proud days. But heard you ever tell of one Charlot Tardivet, a base vassal whose wife your husband, Madame, and your father, Mademoiselle, took from him on his bridal morn? Heard you ever tell of that poor girl—one Marie Tardivet—who died of grief as a consequence of that brutality? But no; such matters were too trivial for your notice if you saw them, or for your memory if you ever heard tell of them. What was the life of a peasant more than that of any other animal of the land, that the concern of it should perturb the sereneness of your aristocratic being? Mesdames, that Charlot Tardivet am I; that Marie Tardivet was my wife. I knew not whom you were when I bade you sup at my table but now that I know it—what do you look for at my hands?"

It was the Marquise who answered him. She was deathly pale, and her words came breathlessly: for all that their import was very bold.

"We look for the recollection that we are women and unless you are as cowardly as—"

"Citoyenne," he broke in harshly, answering her as he had answered La Boulaye, "was my wife less a woman think you? Pah! There is yet another here who was wronged," he announced, and he waved his hand in the direction of La Boulaye, who stood, stiff and pale, by the hearth.

The women turned, and at sight of the Deputy a cry escaped Suzanne. It was a cry of hope, for here was one who would surely lend them aid. It was a fact, she thought, upon which the Captain had not counted. But La Boulaye stood straight and cold, and not by so much as an inclination of the head did he acknowledge that grim introduction. Charlot, mistaking Mademoiselle's exclamation, laughed softly.

"Well may you cry out, Citoyenne," said he, "for him I see you recognise. He is the man who sought to rescue my wife from the clutches of your lordly and most noble father. For his pains he was flogged until they believed him dead. Is it not very fitting that he should be with me now to receive you?"

"But he, at least, is in my debt," cried Mademoiselle, now making a step forward, and sustained by an excitement born of hope. "Whatever may be my father's sins, M. la Boulaye, at least, will not seek to visit them upon the daughter, for he owes his life to me, and he will not forget the debt."

Charlot's brows were suddenly knit with vexation. He half-turned to La Boulaye, as if to speak; but ere he could utter a word—

"The debt has been paid, Citoyenne," said Caron impassively.

Before that cold answer, so coldly delivered, Mademoiselle recoiled.

"Paid!" she echoed mechanically.

"Aye, paid," he rejoined. "You claimed your brother's life in payment, and I gave it to you. Do you not think that we are quits? Besides," he ended suddenly, "Captain Tardivet is the master here. Address your appeals to him, Citoyenne."

With terror written on her face, she turned from him to meet the flushed countenance of Charlot, who, with arms akimbo and his head on one side, was regarding her at once with mockery and satisfaction.

"What do you intend by us, Monsieur?" she questioned in a choking voice.

He smiled inscrutably.

"Allay your fears, Citoyenne; you will find me very gentle."

"I knew you would prove generous," she cried.

"But, yes, Citoyenne," he rejoined, in the tones we employ to those who fear unreasonably. "I shall prove generous; as generous as—as was my lord your father."

La Boulaye trembled, but his face remained calmly expressionless as he watched that grim scene.

"Monsieur!" Suzanne cried out in horror.

"You will not dare, you scum!" blazed the Marchioness.

Charlot shrugged his shoulders and laughed, whereupon Madame de Bellecour seemed to become a being transformed. Her ample flesh, which but a moment back had quivered in fear, quivered now more violently still in anger. The colour flowed back into her cheeks until they flamed an angry crimson, and her vituperations rang in so loud and fierce a voice that at last, putting his hands to his ears, Charlot crossed to the door.

"Silence!" he roared at her, so savagely that her spirit forsook her on the instant. "I will put an end to this," he swore, as he opened the door. "Hold there! Is Guyot below?"

"Here, Captain," came a voice.

Charlot retraced his steps, leaving the door wide, his eyes dwelling upon Suzanne until she shrank under its gaze, as she might have done from the touch of some unclean thing. She drew near to her mother, in whom the brief paroxysm of rage was now succeeded by a no less violent paroxysm of weeping. On the stairs sounded Guyot's ascending steps.

"Mother," whispered Suzanne, setting her arms about her in a vain attempt to comfort. Then she heard Charlot's voice curtly bidding Guyot to reconduct the Marquise to her carriage.

Madame de Bellecour heard it also, and roused herself once more.

"I will not go," she stormed, anger flashing again from the tear-laden eyes. "I will not leave my daughter."

Charlot shrugged his shoulders callously.

"Take her away, Guyot," he said, shortly, and the sturdy soldier obeyed him with a roughness that took no account of either birth or sex.

When the Marquise's last scream had died away in the distance, Charlot turned once more to Suzanne, and it seemed that he sought to compose his features into an expression of gentleness beyond their rugged limitations. But the glance of his blue eyes was kind, and mistaking the purport of that kindness, Mademoiselle began an appeal to his better feelings.

Straight and tall, pale and delicate she stood, her beauty rendered, perhaps, the more appealing by virtue of the fear reflected on her countenance. Her blue eyes were veiled behind their long black lashes, her lips were tremulous, and her hands clasped and unclasped as she now made her prayer to the Republican. But in the hardened heart of Charlot no breath of pity stirred. He beheld her beauty and he bethought him of his wrongs. For the rest, perhaps, had she been less comely he had been less vengeful.

And yonder by the hearth stood La Boulaye like a statue, unmoved and immovable. The Captain was speaking to her, gently and soothingly, but her thoughts became more taken with the silence of La Boulaye than with the speech of Charlot. Even in that parlous moment she had leisure to despise herself for having once—on the day on which, in answer to her intercessions, he had spared her brother's life—entertained a kindly, almost wistful, thought concerning this man whom she now deemed a dastard.



CHAPTER X. THE BAISER LAMOURETTE

Presently Charlot turned to La Boulaye, and for all that he uttered no word, his glance left nothing to be said. In response to it Caron stirred at last, and came leisurely over to the table.

"A mouthful of wine, and I'm gone, Charlot," said he in level, colourless tones, as taking up a flagon he filled himself a goblet.

"Fill for me, too," cried the Captain; "aye, and for the Citoyenne here. Come, my girl, a cup of wine will refresh you."

But Suzanne shrank from the invitation as much as from the tenor of it and the epithet he had applied to her. Observing this, he laughed softly.

"Oh! As you will. But the wine is good-from cellar of a ci-devant Duke. My service to you, Citoyenne," he pledged her, and raising his cup, he poured the wine down a throat that was parched by the much that he had drunk already, But ere the goblet was half-empty, a sharp, sudden cry from La Boulaye came to interrupt his quaffing. He glanced round, and at what he saw he spilled the wine down his waistcoat, then let the cup fall to the ground, as with an oath he flung himself upon the girl.

She had approached the table whilst both men were drinking, and quietly possessed herself of a knife; and, but that it was too blunt to do the service to which she put it, Charlot's intervention would have come too late. As it was he caught her wrist in time, and in a rage he tore the weapon from her fingers, and flung it far across the room.

"So, pretty lady!" he gasped, now gripping both her wrists. "So! we are suicidally inclined, are we! We would cheat Captain Charlot, would we? Fi donc!" he continued with horrid playfulness. "To shed a blood so blue upon a floor so unclean! Name of a name of a name!"

Accounting herself baffled at every point, this girl, who had hitherto borne herself so stoutly as to have stoically sought death as a last means of escape, began to weep softly. Whereupon:

"Nay, nay, little-woman," murmured the Captain, in such accents as are employed to a petted child, and instinctively, in his intent to soothe he drew her nearer. And now the close contact thrilled him; her beauty, and some subtle perfume that reached him from her, played havoc with his senses. Nearer he drew her in silence, his face white and clammy, and his hot, wine laden breath coming quicker every second. And unresisting she submitted, for she was beyond resistance now, beyond tears even. From between wet lashes her great eyes gazed into his with a look of deadly, piteous affright; her lips were parted, her cheeks ashen, and her mind was dimly striving to formulate a prayer to the Holy Mother, the natural protectress of all imperilled virgins.

Nearer she felt herself drawn to her tormentor, in whose thoughts there dwelt now little recollection of the vengeful character of his purpose. For a second her wrists were released; then she felt his arms going round her as the coils of a snake go round its prey. With a sudden reassertion of self, with a panting gasp of horror, she tore herself free. An oath broke from him as he sprang after her. Then the unexpected happened. Above his head something bright flashed up, then down. There was a dull crack, and the Captain stopped short in his rush; his hands were jerked to the height of his breast, and like a pole-axed beast he dropped and lay prone at her feet.

Across his fallen body she beheld La Boulaye standing impassively, the ghost of a smile on his thin lips, and in his hand one of the heavy silver candlesticks from the table.

Whilst a man might count a dozen they stood so with no word spoken. Then:

"It was a cowardly blow, Citoyenne," said the Deputy in accents of regret; "but what choice had I?" He set down the candlestick, and kneeling beside Charlot, he felt for the Captain's heart. "The door, Citoyenne," he muttered. "Lock it."

Mechanically, and without uttering a word, she hastened to do his bidding. As the key grated in the lock he rose.

"It has only stunned him," he announced. "Now to prepare an explanation for it."

He drew a chair under the old brass lamp, that hung from the ceiling. He mounted the chair, and with both hands he seized the chain immediately above the lamp. Drawing himself up, he swung there for just a second; then the hook gave way, and amid a shower of plaster La Boulaye half-tumbled to the ground.

"There," said he, as he dropped the lamp with its chain and hook upon the floor by Charlot. "It may not be as convincing as we might wish, but I think that it will prove convincing enough to the dull wits of the landlady, and of such of Charlot's followers as may enter here. I am afraid," he deplored, "that it will be some time before he recovers. He was so far gone in wine that it needed little weight to fell him."

Her glance met his once more, and she took a step towards him with hands outstretched.

"Monsieur, Monsieur!" she cried. "If you but knew how in my thoughts I wronged you a little while ago."

"You had all reason to," he answered, taking her hands, and there came the least softening of his stern countenance. "It grieved me to add to your affliction. But had I permitted him to do so much as suspect that I was anything but your implacable enemy, I had no chance of saving you. He would have dismissed me, and I must have obeyed or been compelled, for he is master here, and has men enough to enforce what he desires."

And now she would have thanked him for having saved her, but he cut her short almost roughly.

"You owe me no thanks," he said. "I have but done for you what my manhood must have bidden me do for any woman similarly situated. For to-night I have saved you, Citoyenne. I shall make an effort to smuggle you and your mother out of Boisvert before morning, but after that you must help yourselves."

"You will do this?" she cried, her eyes glistening.

"I will attempt it."

"By what means, Monsieur Caron?"

"I do not yet know. I must consider. In the meantime you had best return to your coach. Later to-night I shall have you and your mother brought to me, and I will endeavour to so arrange matters that you shall not again return to your carriage.

"Not return to it?" she exclaimed. "But are we then to leave it here?"

"I am afraid there is no help for that."

"But, Monsieur, you do not know; there is a treasure in that carriage. All that we have is packed in it, and if we go without it we go destitute."

"Better, perhaps, to go destitute than not to go at all, Mademoiselle. I am afraid there is no choice for you."

His manner was a trifle impatient. It irritated him that in such a moment she should give so much thought to her valuables. But in reality she was thinking of them inasmuch as they concerned her mother, who was below, and her father and brother who awaited them in Prussia, whither they had separately emigrated. The impatience in his tone stung her into a feeling of resentment, that for the moment seemed to blot out the much that she owed him. A reproachful word was trembling on her lips, when suddenly he put out his hand.

"Hist!" he whispered, the concentrated look of one who listens stamped upon his face. His sharp ears had detected some sound which—perhaps through her preoccupation—she had not noticed. He stepped quickly to the Captain's side, and taking up the lamp by its chain, he leapt into the air like a clown, and came down on his heels with a thud that shook the chamber. Simultaneously he dropped the lamp with a clatter, and sent a shout re-echoing through the house.

The girl stared at him with parted lips and the least look of fear in her eyes. Was he gone clean mad of a sudden?

But now the sound which had warned him of someone's approach reached her ears as well. There were steps on the stairs, which at that alarming noise were instantly quickened. Yet ere they had reached the top La Boulaye was at the door vociferating wildly.

Into the room came the hostess, breathless and grinning with anxiety, and behind her came Guyot, who, startled by the din, had hastened up to inquire into its cause.

At sight of the Captain stretched upon the floor there was a scream from Mother Capoulade and an oath from the soldier.

"Mon Dieu! what has happened?" she cried, hurrying forward.

"Miserable!" exclaimed La Boulaye, with well-feigned anger. "It seems that your wretched hovel is tumbling to pieces, and that men are not safe beneath its roof." And he indicated the broken plaster and the fallen lamp.

"How did it happen, Citoyenne-deputy?" asked Guyot; for all that he drew the only possible inference from what he saw.

"Can you not see how it happened?" returned La Boulaye, impatiently. "As for you, wretched woman, you will suffer for it, I promise you. The nation is likely to demand a high price for Captain Charlot's injuries."

"But, bon Dieu, how am I to blame?" wailed the frightened woman.

"To blame," echoed La Boulaye, in a furious voice. "Are you not to blame that you let rooms in a crazy hovel? Let them to emigres as much as you will, but if you let them to good patriots and thereby endanger their lives you must take the consequences. And the consequences in this case are likely to be severe, malheureuse."

He turned now to Guyot, who was kneeling by the Captain, and looking to his hurt.

"Here, Guyot," he commanded sharply, "reconduct the Citoyenne to her coach. I will perhaps see her again later, when the Captain shall have recovered consciousness. You, Citoyenne Capoulade, assist me to carry him to bed."

Each obeyed him, Guyot readily, as became a soldier, and the hostess trembling with the dread which La Boulaye's words had instilled into her. They got Charlot to bed, and when a half-hour or so later he recovered consciousness, it was to find Guyot watching at his bed-side. Bewildered, he demanded an explanation of his present position and of the pain in his head, which brought him the memory of a sudden and unaccountable blow he had received, which was the last thing that he remembered. Guyot, who had never for a moment entertained a doubt of the genuineness of the mise-en-scene La Boulaye had prepared, answered him with the explanation of how he had been struck by the falling lamp, whereupon Charlot fell to cursing lamps and crumblings with horrid volubility. That done he would have risen, but that La Boulaye, entering at that moment, insisted that he should remain abed.

"Are you mad?" the Deputy expostulated, "or is it that you do not appreciate the nature of your hurt? Diable! I have known a man die through insisting to be about with a cracked skull that was as nothing to yours."

"Name of a name!" gasped Charlot, who in such matters was profoundly ignorant and correspondingly credulous. "Is it so serious?"

"Not serious if you lie still and sleep. You will probably be quite well by to-morrow. But if you move to-night the consequences may well be fatal."

"But I cannot sleep at this hour," the Captain complained. "I am very wakeful."

"We will try to find you a sleeping potion, then," said La Boulaye. "I hope the hosteen may have something that will answer the purpose. Meanwhile, Guyot, do not allow the Captain to talk. If you would have him well to-morrow, remember that it is of the first importance that he should have utter rest tonight."

With that he went in quest of Dame Capoulade to ascertain whether she possessed any potion that would induce sleep. He told her that the Captain was seriously injured, and that unless he slept he might die, and, quickened by the terror of what might befall her in such a case, the woman presently produced a small phial full of a brown, viscous fluid. What it might be he had no notion, being all unversed in the mysteries of the pharmacopoeia; but she told him that it had belonged to her now defunct husband, who had always said that ten drops of it would make a man sleep the clock round.

He experimented on the Captain with ten drops, and within a quarter of an hour of taking the draught of red wine in which it was administered, Charlot's deep breathing proclaimed him fast asleep.

That done, La Boulaye sent Guyot below to his post once more, and returning to the room in which they had supped, he paced up and down for a full hour, revolving in his mind the matter of saving Mademoiselle and her mother. At last, towards ten o'clock, he opened the casement, and calling down to Guyot, as Charlot had done, he bade him bring the women up again. Now Guyot knew of the high position which Caron occupied in the Convention, and he had seen the intimate relations in which he stood to Tardivet, so that unhesitatingly he now obeyed him.

La Boulaye closed the window, and crossed slowly to the fire. He stirred the burning logs with his boot, then stood there waiting. Presently the stairs creaked, next the door opened, and Guyot ushered in Mademoiselle.

"The elder citoyenne refuses to come, Citizen-deputy," said the soldier. "They both insisted that it was not necessary, and that the Citoyenne here would answer your questions."

Almost on the point of commanding the soldier to return for the Marquise, Caron caught the girl's eye, and her glance was so significant that he thought it best to hear first what motives she had for thus disobeying him.

"Very well," he said shortly. "You may go below, Guyot. But hold yourself in readiness lest I should have need of you."

The soldier saluted and disappeared. Scarce was he gone when Mademoiselle came hurrying forward.

"Monsieur Caron," she cried "Heaven is surely befriending us. The soldiers are drinking themselves out of their wits. They will be keeping a slack watch presently."

He looked at her for a moment, fathoming the purport of what she said.

"But," he demanded at last, "why did not the Marquise obey my summons, and accompany you?"

"She was afraid to leave the coach, Monsieur. Moreover, she agreed with me that it would not be necessary."

"Not necessary?" he echoed. "But it is necessary. When last you were here I told you I did not intend you should return to the coach. This is my plan, Citoyenne. I shall keep Guyot waiting below while you and your mother are fortifying yourselves by supper here. Then I shall dismiss him with a recommendation that he keep a close watch upon the carriage, and the information that you will not be returning to it to-night. A half-hour later or so, when things are quiet, I shall find a way out for you by the back, after which the rest must remain in your hands. More I cannot do."

"You can," she cried; "you can."

"If you will enlighten me," said he, with the faintest touch of irony.

She looked at his stern, sardonic face and solemn grey eyes, and for a moment it almost seemed to her that she hated him more than anybody in the world. He was so passionless, so master of himself, and he addressed her in a tone which, whilst it suggested that he accounted himself most fully her equal, made her feel that he was really her better by much. If one of these two was an aristocrat, surely that one was the Citizen-deputy La Boulaye.

"If you had but the will you would do it, Monsieur," she answered him. "It is not mine to enlighten you; I know not how."

"I have the very best will in the world, Citoyenne," said he. "Of that I think that I am giving proof."

"Aye, the will to do nothing that will shame your manhood," she rejoined. "That is all you think of. It was because your manhood bade you that you came to my rescue—so you said when you declined my thanks. It is this manhood of yours, I make no doubt, that is now prevailing upon you to deliver two unprotected women out of the hands of these brigands."

"In Heaven's name, Citoyenne," quoth the astonished Deputy, "out of what sentiment would you have me act, and, indeed, so that I save you, how can it concern you by what sentiment I am prompted?"