"Oh, it"s only that woman who is cleaning the place. She has knocked over a table or a chair. Come. Let"s go out and get something to eat.
I"m famished. We can return later, and finish our work."
CHAPTER XXIV
TWO WOMEN
The revelation that Tournay was condemned, the awful knowledge that he would be executed on the morrow, conveyed to her thus suddenly, made the room reel before Edme"s eyes. In her dizziness she fell against one of the tables and held to it for support.
In the quiet that followed the departure of the clerks she pressed her head and tried to think. At first her benumbed brain refused to work; then as the full significance of the clerk"s action came back to her, when she realized just what he had done and what she in her turn might do, she stood erect, alert, and courageous.
The warrant for Robert"s death; could she get possession of it? With a beating heart she glided into the chamber of death warrants.
A lamp was burning in the room, and there in plain view upon the table were three packets of black-covered papers. She bent over them hastily and at once took up the file marked: "Warrants of the eighth Thermidor."
With nervous fingers she ran them through, looking at each name until she came to that of "Tournay, Robert, ex-colonel." At sight of the name she gave a half-suppressed cry, and took it quietly from the others.
"They shall not send you to the guillotine to-morrow, Robert," she breathed. Her first thought was how to make way with the fatal paper.
She looked round the room; it had one window and two doors. The window looked out upon the street. One doorway led back into the tribunal chamber. Through the other, a small one, the two clerks must have pa.s.sed out. She hastened towards it, praying fervently that they had omitted to fasten it. Vain prayer, the clerks had not been remiss in their duty here. It was locked. Yet it was not a strong barrier. A few blows struck with some heavy object might break it through; or better still there was a pistol in the drawer of one of the desks; with that she could blow the lock to atoms. Either method would make a noise, but she must take the risk.
Just as these thoughts flashed through her mind, she saw to her consternation the door-handle turn, and heard the grating of a key on the outside.
"The employees returning," she thought, and had just presence of mind enough to pa.s.s her left hand, which still clutched the death warrant, behind her back, when the door opened, and she was face to face with a woman.
"h.e.l.lo!" said the latter, "I expected to find Clement and Hanneton here.
Who are you?"
"I--I am,--I came in the place of Madame--of Citizeness Privat."
"You seem a little put out, citizeness, at the sight of La Liberte. You have never seen me before? That"s why, eh? Tell me, now, what are you doing here?"
"I am doing the work of Citizeness Privat, who is ill," replied Edme, recovering her self-possession.
"Hum," said La Liberte with a slight sniff, as she closed the door and pa.s.sed toward the centre of the room. Edme slowly revolved on her heel, keeping her face toward La Liberte, and her left hand behind her back.
"What are you trying to hide there?" demanded La Liberte quickly, whose bright brown eyes took in every motion of Edme.
"I have nothing to hide."
La Liberte"s glance went from Edme to the warrants on the table, and then back to Edme"s face again.
"You are hiding something behind your back," persisted La Liberte, trying to obtain a peep at it by making a circle around Edme. Edme continued to turn, always keeping her face toward La Liberte.
The latter stopped. "I will see what you have there," she declared with a toss of her head, her curiosity aroused to the burning point.
"You shall not. It does not concern you," was the firm reply.
For an instant each looked into the other"s eyes in silence. Both breathed defiance; both were equally determined.
Then with a tigerlike spring La Liberte dashed forward, seized Edme about the waist with one arm, while she endeavored to secure the parchment with her other hand. Edme quickly pa.s.sed the doc.u.ment into her right hand, bringing it forward high above her head. With the same cat-like agility, La Liberte sprang for it on the other side and managed to get hold of it by one corner. There was a short struggle; a tearing of paper, and each held a piece of the doc.u.ment in her hand.
"A warrant!" exclaimed La Liberte, darting back a few paces and shaking out the piece of paper in her hand. "You have been tampering with these," she added quickly, putting one hand upon the pile of doc.u.ments on the table.
Edme made no reply.
"Why did you take it?" inquired La Liberte, taking her portion of paper near the light to examine it, while she kept one eye fixed upon her late antagonist, in fear of a sudden attack.
The warrant had been divided nearly down the centre; but the last name of the condemned man was upon the piece held by La Liberte.
"Tournay!" she cried out in surprise. "Robert Tournay! What object have you in destroying this warrant?"
"I have not destroyed it," replied Edme, making the greatest effort to maintain an outward calm. "It was you who tore it."
"Don"t try any of those tricks with me," snapped La Liberte. "Come, what was your object in taking this warrant? It is a dangerous thing to tamper with those doc.u.ments."
"I shall not answer any of your questions," was Edme"s rejoinder.
For a s.p.a.ce of ten seconds the two women stood again confronting each other, as if each waited for the other to move. La Liberte"s eyes looked fixedly at Edme, as if they would read her through and through.
"You are not what you pretend to be," she said finally; "you are no woman of the people." Then, suddenly flinging aside the torn paper, she rushed forward and seized Edme"s arm.
"I know who you are now!" she exclaimed excitedly. "You are an aristocrat! Don"t deny it!" she continued pa.s.sionately. "I came from La Thierry. I was a young girl when I left there, but my memory serves me well. Your name is Edme de Rochefort. You are an aristocrat, and you love the republican colonel! You destroyed this warrant. You risked your life in the attempt to prolong his."
"Whoever I may be, whatever I attempted to do, you tore that paper. It was you who destroyed it," said Edme as she wrenched herself free from the woman"s grasp.
The only answer of La Liberte was a loud and scornful laugh. She approached Edme again with a malignant glitter in her eyes; but Edme held her ground and confronted her bravely.
"So you are Edme de Rochefort," repeated La Liberte slowly. "I remember having seen you years ago when I was a girl of fifteen, at my father"s mill near the village of La Thierry. You were a pale-faced girl then.
You didn"t wear coa.r.s.e clothes then! You drove in your carriage, and didn"t look at such as me; but I saw you, and hated you for being so proud. Then there was a certain marquis." A bright spot appeared on Edme"s cheek, but she did not speak.
"He came to pay his court to you, but he made love to me. He never even made a pretense of loving you. But he cared for me in his cold, selfish way. He took me to Paris, gave me everything money could buy, for a while. Then he left me, and went back to you. I hated you for that. You did not care for him. You did not marry him. That made no difference to me. Then there was another man. He was not for you. He was of my cla.s.s, not yours. You had no right to his love. He never loved me, I know. I am too proud to say he loved me when it was not so. But he was kind to me.
He was n.o.ble and generous, and I loved him. You had no right to him. I hate you for that more than all." Her pa.s.sion wrought upon her so that her once pretty face was something fearful to behold. Edme expected at each breath she would spring forward and tear her like a tiger cat.
"I care not for your hatred," Edme retorted calmly. "I never willfully wronged you. Your hatred cannot harm me."
"No?" demanded the frenzied La Liberte. "It can restore this paper. I can denounce you. I can send you with your lover to the guillotine."
"That does not terrify me," replied Edme. "You can send the woman you hate and the man you profess to love into another world together. That is all you can do. I am above your hatred."
La Liberte started to speak, then checked herself.
"You say you love him. Love," repeated Edme in a tone of deep disdain.
"You dare to call that love which would destroy its object? Such as you are not capable of love."
"If it were not that _you_ loved him, I would let them cut me into pieces for his sake," retorted La Liberte fiercely.
"You say that you love him, and you are willing to send him to the guillotine," repeated Edme.