"But possibly, Citizen, it may be yours to avoid both. You shall hear from me in the morning. I beg that you will sleep tranquilly in the meantime. Garin, remove the prisoners."
CHAPTER XV. LA BOULAYE BAITS HIS HOOK
For fully an hour after their prisoners had been removed La Boulaye paced the narrow limits of the kitchen with face inscrutable and busy mind. He recalled what Suzanne had said touching her betrothal to Ombreval, whom she looked to meet at Treves. This miserable individual, then, was the man for whose sake she had duped him. But Ombreval at least was in Caron"s power, and it came to him now that by virtue of that circ.u.mstance he might devise a way to bring her back without the need to go after her. He would send her word--aye, and proof--that he had taken him captive, and it should be hers to choose whether she would come to his rescue and humble herself to save him or leave him to his fate. In that hour it seemed all one to La Boulaye which course she followed, since by either, he reasoned, she must be brought to suffer. That he loved her was with him now a matter that had sunk into comparative insignificance. The sentiment that ruled his mind was anger, with its natural concomitant--the desire to punish.
And when morning came the Deputy"s view of the situation was still unchanged. He was astir at an early hour, and without so much as waiting to break his fast, he bade Garin bring in the prisoners. Their appearance was in each case typical. Ombreval was sullen and his dress untidy, even when allowance had been made for the inherent untidiness of the Republican disguise which he had adopted to so little purpose. Des Cadoux looked well and fresh after his rest, and gave the Deputy an airy "Good morning" as he entered. He had been at some pains, too, with his toilet, and although his hair was slightly disarranged and most of the powder was gone from the right side, suggesting that he had lain on it, his appearance in the main was creditably elegant.
"Citizen Ombreval," said La Boulaye, in that stern, emotionless voice that was becoming characteristic of him, "since you have acquainted yourself with the contents of the letter you stole from the man you murdered, you cannot be in doubt as to my intentions concerning you."
The Vicomte reddened with anger.
"For your intentions I care nothing," he answered hotly--rendered very brave by pa.s.sion--"but I will have you consider your words. Do you say that I stole and murdered? You forget, M. le Republican, that I am a gentlemen."
"Meaning, of course, that the cla.s.s that so described itself could do these things with impunity without having them called by their proper names, is it not so? But you also forget that the Republic has abolished gentlemen, and with them, their disgraceful privileges."
"Canaille!" growled the Vicomte, his eyes ablaze with wrath.
"Citizen-aristocrat, consider your words!" La Boulaye had stepped close up to him, and his voice throbbed with a sudden anger no whit less compelling than Ombreval"s. "Fool! let me hear that word again, applied either to me or to any of my followers, and I"ll have you beaten like a dog."
And as the lesser ever does give way before the greater, so now did the anger that had sustained Ombreval go down and vanish before the overwhelming pa.s.sion of La Boulaye. He grew pale to the lips at the Deputy"s threat, and his eyes cravenly avoided the steady gaze of his captor.
"You deserve little consideration at my hands, Citizen," said La Boulaye, more quietly, "and yet I have a mind to give you a lesson in generosity. We start for Paris in half-an-hour. If anywhere you should have friends expecting you, whom you might wish to apprise of your position, you may spend the half-hour that is left in writing to them. I will see that your letter reaches its destination."
Ombreval"s pallor seemed to intensify. His eyes looked troubled as they were raised to La Boulaye"s. Then they fell again, and there was a pause. At last--.
"I shall be glad to avail myself of your offer," he said, in a voice that for meekness was ludicrously at variance with his late utterances.
"Then pray do so at once." And La Boulaye took down an inkhorn a quill, and a sheaf of paper from the mantel-shelf behind him. These he placed on the table, and setting a chair, he signed to the aristocrat to be seated.
"And now, Citizen Cadoux," said La Boulaye, turning to the old n.o.bleman, "I shall be glad if you will honour me by sharing my breakfast while Citizen Ombreval is at his writing."
Des Cadoux looked up in some surprise.
"You are too good, Monsieur," said he, inclining his head. "But afterwards?"
"I have decided," said La Boulaye, with the ghost of a smile, "to deal with your case myself, Citizen."
The old dandy took a deep breath, but the glance of his blue eyes was steadfast, and his lips smiled as he made answer:
"Again you are too good. I feared that you would carry me to Paris, and at my age the journey is a tiresome one. I am grateful, and meanwhile,--why, since you are so good as to invite me, let us breakfast, by all means."
They sat down at a small table in the embrasure of the window, and their hostess placed before them a boiled fowl, a dish of eggs, a stew of herbs, and a flask of red wine, all of which La Boulaye had bidden her prepare.
"Why, it is a feast," declared Des Cadoux, in excellent humour, and for all that he was under the impression that he was to die in half-an-hour he ate with the heartiest good-will, chatting pleasantly the while with the Republican--the first Republican with whom it had ever been his aristocratic lot to sit at table. And what time the meal proceeded Ombreval--with two soldiers standing behind his chair-penned his letter to Mademoiselle de Bellecour.
Had La Boulaye--inspired by the desire to avenge himself for the treachery of which he had been the victim--dictated that epistle, t could not have been indicted in a manner better suited to his ends.
It was a maudlin, piteous letter, in which, rather than making his farewells, the Vicomte besought the aid of Suzanne. He was, he wrote, in the hands of men who might be bribed, and since she was rich--for he knew of the treasure with which she had escaped--he based his hopes upon her employing a portion of her riches to obtaining his enlargement. She, he continued, was his only hope, and for the sake of their love, for the sake of their common n.o.bility, he besought her not to fail him now.
Carried away by the piteousness of his entreaties the tears welled up to his eyes and trickled down his cheeks, one or two of them finding their way to the paper thus smearing it with an appeal more piteous still if possible than that of his maudlin words.
At last the letter was ended. He sealed it with a wafer and wrote the superscription:
"To Mademoiselle de Bellecour. At the "Hotel des Trois Rois," Treves."
He announced the completion of his task, and La Boulaye bade him go join Des Cadoux at the next table and take some food before setting out, whilst the Deputy himself now sat down to write.
"Citoyenne," he wrote, "the man to whom you are betrothed, for whose sake you stooped to treachery and attempted murder, is in my hands. Thus has Heaven set it in my power to punish you, if the knowledge that he travels to the guillotine is likely to prove a punishment. If you would rescue him, come to me in Paris, and, conditionally, I may give you his life."
That, he thought should humble her. He folded his letter round Ombreval"s and having sealed the package, he addressed it as...o...b..eval had addressed his own missive.
"Garin," he commanded briefly, "remove the Citizen Ombreval."
When he had been obeyed, and Garin had conducted the Vicomte from the room, La Boulaye turned again to Des Cadoux. They were alone, saving the two soldiers guarding the door.
The old man rose, and making the sign of the cross, he stepped forward, calm and intrepid of bearing.
"Monsieur," he announced to La Boulaye, who was eyeing him with the faintest tinge of surprise, "I am quite ready."
"Have you always been so devout, Citizen?" inquired the Deputy.
"Alas! no Monsieur. But there comes a time in the life of every man when, for a few moments at least, he is p.r.o.ne to grow mindful of the lessons learnt in childhood."
The surprise increased in La Boulaye"s countenance. At last he shrugged his shoulders, after the manner of one who abandons a problem that has grown too knotty.
"Citizen des Cadoux," said he, "I have deliberated that since I have received no orders from Paris concerning you, and also since I am not by profession a catch-poll there is no reason whatever why I should carry you to Paris. In fact, Citizen, I know of no reason why I should interfere with your freedom at all. On the contrary when I recall the kindness you sought to do me that day, years ago, at Bellecour, I find every reason why I should further your escape from the Revolutionary tribunal. A horse, Citizen, stands ready saddled for you, and you are free to depart, with the one condition, however, that you will consent to become my courier for once, and carry a letter for me--a matter which should occasion you, I think, no deviation from your journey."
The old dandy, in whose intrepid spirit the death which he had believed imminent had occasioned no trembling, turned pale as La Boulaye ceased.
His blue eyes were lifted almost timidly to the Deputy"s face, and his lip quivered.
"You are not going to have me shot, then?" he faltered.
"Shot?" echoed La Boulaye, and then he remembered the precise words of the request which Des Cadoux had preferred the night before, but which, at the time, he had treated lightly. "Ma foi, you do not flatter me!" he cried. "Am I a murderer, then? Come, come, Citizen, here is the letter that you are to carry. It is addressed to Mademoiselle de Bellecour, at Treves, and encloses...o...b..eval"s farewell epistle to that lady."
"But, gladly, Monsieur," exclaimed Des Cadoux.
And then, as if to cover his sudden access of emotion, of which he was most heartily ashamed, he fumbled for his snuff-box, and, having found it, he took an enormous pinch.
They parted on the very best of terms did these two--the aristocrat and the Revolutionary--actuated by a mutual esteem tempered in each case with grat.i.tude.
When at last Des Cadoux had taken a sympathetic leave of Ombreval and departed, Caron ordered the Vicomte to be brought before him again, and at the same time bade his men make ready for the road.
"Citizen," said La Boulaye, "we start for Paris at once. If you will pa.s.s me your word of honour to attempt no escape you shall travel with us in complete freedom and with all dignity."
Ombreval looked at him with insolent surprise, his weak supercilious mouth growing more supercilious even than its wont. He had recovered a good deal of his spirit by now.
"Pa.s.s you my word of honour?" he echoed. "Mon Dieu! my good fellow a word of honour is a bond between gentlemen. I think too well of mine to pa.s.s it to the first greasy rascal of the Republic that asks it of me."