"Do not misunderstand me," he cried, as he stood erect over her. "If you would have Ombreval saved and sent out of France you must become my wife."
"Your wife?" she echoed, pausing in her weeping, and for a moment an odd happiness seemed to fill her. But as suddenly as it had arisen did she stifle it. Was she not the n.o.ble daughter of the n.o.ble Marquis de Bellecour and was not this a lowly born member of a rabble government?
There could be no such mating. A shudder ran through her. "I cannot, Monsieur, I cannot!" she sobbed.
He looked at her a moment with a glance that was almost of surprise, then, with a slight compression of the lips and the faintest raising of the shoulders, he turned from her and strode over to the window. There was a considerable concourse of people on their way to the Place de la Republique, for the hour of the tumbrils was at hand.
A half-dozen of those uns.e.xed viragos produced by the Revolution, in filthy garments, red bonnets and streaming hair, were marching by to the raucous chorus of the "Ca ira!"
He turned from the sight in disgust, and again faced his visitor.
"Citoyenne," he said, in a composed voice, "I am afraid that your journey has been in vain."
She rose now from her knees, and advanced towards him.
"Monsieur, you will not be so cruel as to send me away empty-handed?"
she cried, scarce knowing what she was saying.
But he looked at her gravely, and without any sign of melting.
"On what," he asked, "do you base any claim upon me?"
"On what?" she echoed, and her glance was troubled with perplexity. Then of a sudden it cleared. "On the love that you have confessed for me,"
she cried.
He laughed a short laugh-half amazement, half scorn.
"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, tossing his arms to Heaven, "a fine claim that, as I live; a fine argument by which to induce me to place another man in your arms. I am to do it because I love you!"
They gazed at each other now, she with a glance of strained anxiety, he with the same look of half-contemptuous wonder. And then a creaking rumble from below attracted his attention, and he looked round. He moved forward and threw the window wide, letting in with the March air an odd medley of sounds to which the rolling of drums afforded a most congruous accompaniment.
"Look, Citoyenne," he said, and he pointed out the first tumbril, which was coming round the corner of the Rue St. Honore.
She approached with some shrinking begotten by a suspicion of what she was desired to see.
In the street below, among a vociferating crowd of all sorts and conditions, the black death-cart moved on its way to the guillotine.
It was preceded by a company of National Guards, and followed by the drummers and another company on foot. Within the fatal vehicle travelled three men and two women, accompanied by a const.i.tutional priest--one of those renegades who had taken the oath imposed by the Convention. The two women sat motionless, more like statues than living beings, their faces livid and horribly expressionless, so numbed were their intelligences by fear. Of the men, one stood calm and dignified, another knelt at his prayers, and was subject, therefore, to the greater portion of the gibes the mob was offering these poor victims; the third, a very elegant gentleman in a green coat and buckskin breeches, leant nonchalantly upon the rail of the tumbril and exchanged gibes with the people. All five of them were in the prime of life, and, by their toilettes and the air that clung to them, belonged unmistakably to the n.o.blesse.
One glance did Mademoiselle bestow upon that tragic spectacle, then with a shudder she drew back, her face going deathly white.
"Why did you bid me look?" she moaned.
"That for yourself you might see," he answered pitilessly, "the road by which your lover is to journey."
"Mon Dieu!" she cried, wringing her hands, "it is horrible. Oh! You are not men, you Revolutionists. You are beasts of prey, tigers in human semblance."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Great injustices beget great reactions. Great wrongs can only be balanced by great wrongs. For centuries the power has lain with the aristocrats, and they have most foully abused it. For centuries the people of France have writhed beneath the armed heel of the n.o.bility, and their blood, unjustly and wantonly shed, has saturated the soil until from that seed has sprung this overwhelming retribution.
Now--now, when it is too late--you are repenting; now, when at last some twenty-five million Frenchmen have risen with weapons in their hands to purge the nation of you. We are no worse than were you; indeed, not so bad. It is only that we do in a little while--and, therefore, while it lasts in greater quant.i.ty--what you have been doing through countless generations."
"Spare me these arguments, Monsieur," she cried, recovering her spirit.
"The "whys" and "wherefores" of it are nothing to me. I see what you are doing, and that is enough. But," and her voice grew gentle and pleading, her hands were held out to him, "you are good at heart, Monsieur; you are generous and you can be n.o.ble. You will give me the life that I have come to beg of you; the life you promised me."
"Yes, but upon terms, Mademoiselle, and those terms you have heard."
She looked a moment into that calm, set face, into the dark grey eyes that looked so solemn and betrayed so little of what was pa.s.sing within.
"And you say that you love me?" she cried.
"Helas!" he sighed. "It is a weakness I cannot conquer.
"Look well down into your heart, M. La Boulaye," she answered him, "and you will find how egregious is your error. You do not love me; you love yourself, and only yourself. If you loved me you would not seek to have me when I am unwilling. Above all things, you would desire my happiness--it is ever so when we truly love--and you would seek to promote it. If, indeed, you loved me you would grant my prayer, and not torture me as you are doing. But since you only love yourself, you minister only to yourself, and seek to win me by force since you desire me."
She ceased, and her eyes fell before his glance, which remained riveted upon her face. Immovable he stood a moment or two, then he turned from her with a little sigh, and leaning his elbow upon the window-sill, he gazed down into the crowds surging about the second tumbril. But although he saw much there that was calculated to compel attention, he heeded nothing. His thoughts were very busy, and he was doing what Mademoiselle had bidden him. He was looking into himself. And from that questioning he gathered not only that he loved her, but that he loved her so well and so truly that--in spite even of all that was pa.s.sed--he must do her will, and deliver up to her the man she loved.
His resolve was but half taken when he heard her stirring in the room behind him. He turned sharply to find that she had gained the door.
"Mademoiselle!" he called after her. She stopped, and as she turned, he observed that her lashes were wet. But in her heart there arose now a fresh hope, awakened by the name by which he had recalled her. "Whither are you going?" he asked.
"Away, Monsieur," she answered. "I was realising that my journey had indeed been in vain."
He looked at her a second in silence. Then stepping forward:
"Mademoiselle," he said, very quietly, "your arguments have prevailed, and it shall be as you desire. The ci-devant Vicomte d"Ombreval shall go free."
Her face seemed to grow of a sudden paler, and for an instant she stood still as if robbed of understanding. Then she came forward with hands outheld.
"Said I not that you were good and generous? Said I not that you could be n.o.ble, Monsieur?" she cried, as she caught his resisting hand and sought to carry it to her lips. "G.o.d will bless you, Monsieur--"
He drew his hand away, but without roughness. "Let us say no more, Mademoiselle," he begged.
"But I will," she answered him. "I am not without heart, Monsieur, and now that you have given me this proof of the deep quality of your love, I--" She paused, as if at a loss for words.
"Well, Mademoiselle?" he urged her.
"I have it in my heart to wish that--that it were otherwise," she said, her cheeks reddening under his gaze. "If it were not that I account myself in honour bound to wed M. le Vicomte--"
"Stop!" he interrupted her. He had caught at last the drift of what she was saying. "There is no need for any comedy, Suzanne. Enough of that had we at Boisvert."
"It is not comedy," she cried with heat. "It was not altogether comedy at Boisvert."
"True," he said, wilfully misunderstanding her that he might the more easily dismiss the subject, "it went nearer to being tragedy." Then abruptly he asked her:
"Where are you residing?"
She paused before replying. She still wanted to protest that some affection for him dwelt in her heart, although curbed (to a greater extent even than she was aware) by the difference in their stations, and checked by her plighted word to Ombreval. At last, abandoning a purpose which his countenance told her would be futile:
"I am staying with my old nurse at Choisy," she answered him. "Henriette G.o.delliere is her name. She is well known in the village, and seems in good favour with the patriots, so that I account myself safe. I am believed to be her niece from the country."