 CHAPTER 9 At the door of her home, Blakeney parted from Anne-Mierre, with all the courtesy with which she would have bade a due to the greatest lady in his own land. Anne-Mierre led herself into the house with her own latch-key. She closed the heavy door-noise-eslith and glided upstairs like quaint little ghost. But on the landing above she met Paul de Relaide. He had just come out of his room and was still fully dressed. Anne-Mierre, he said, with such an obvious cry of pleasure that the young girl with beating heart paused a moment on the top of the stairs as if hoping to hear that cry again, feeling that indeed he was glad to see her, had been uneasy because of her long absence. "'Have I made you anxious?' she asked at last. "'Anxious,' he exclaimed, "'little one, I have hardly lived this last hour, since I realized that you had gone out so late as this and all alone. How did you know?' Madam Ozil de Marnie knocked at my door an hour ago. She had gone through your room to see you, and not finding a new there, she searched the house for you, and finally in her anxiety came to me. We did not dare to tell my mother. I won't ask where you have been, Anne-Mierre, but another time, remember, little one, that the streets of Paris are not safe, and that those who love you suffer deeply when they know you to be in peril. "'Those who love me,' murmured the girl under her breath, "'could you not have asked me to come with you?' "'No, I wanted to be alone. These streets were quite safe, and I wanted to speak with Sir Percy Blakene.' "'With Blakene?' he exclaimed in boundless astonishment. "'Why, what in the world did you want to say to him?' "'The girl, so unaccustomed to lying, had blurted out the truth, almost against her will. "'I thought he could help me, as I was much perturbed and restless.' "'You went to him, sooner than to me,' said Dey, relayed in the tone of gentle reproach, and still puzzled at this extraordinary action on the part of the girl, usually so shy and reserved. "'My anxiety was about you, and you would have mocked me for it. "'Indeed, I should never mock you, Anne-Mierre. But why should you be anxious about me?' "'Because I see you wandering blindly on the brink of a great danger, because I see you confiding in those whom you had best mistrust.' He frowned a little and bit his lip to check the rough word that was on the tip of his tongue. "'Is Sir Percy Blakene one of those whom I had best mistrust?' he said, lily. "'No,' she answered curtly. "'Then, dear, there is no cause for unrest. He is the only one of my friends whom you have not known intimately. All those who are around me now, you know that you can trust and that you can love.' He added earnestly and significantly. He took her hand. It was trembling with obvious suppressed agitation. She knew that he had guessed what was passing in her mind, and now was deeply ashamed of what she had done. She had been tortured with jealousy for the past three weeks, but at least she had suffered quite alone. On one had been allowed to touch that wound, which more often than not excites derision rather than pity. Now, by her own actions, two men knew her secret. Both were kind and sympathetic, but they relayed resent to her imputations, and Blakene had been unable to help her. A wave of morbid introspection swept over her soul. She realized in a moment how pity and base had been her thoughts and how purposeless her actions. She would have given her life at this moment to eradicate from Derellead's mind the knowledge of her own jealousy. She hoped that at least he had not guessed her love. She tried to read his thoughts, but in the dark passage only dimly lighted by the candles in Derellead's room beyond, she could not see the expression of his face, but the hand which held hers was warm and tender. She felt herself pitied and blushed at the thought. With a hasty good night she fled down the passage and locked herself in her room, alone with her own thoughts at last. CHAPTER X Denunciation But what of Juliet? What of this wild, passionate, romantic creature tortured by a titanic conflict? She but a girl, scarcely yet a woman, torn by the greatest antagonistic powers that ever fought for human soul. On the one side duty, tradition, her dead brother, her father, above all her religion in the oath she had sworn before God, on the other justice and honor, a case of right and wrong, honesty and pity. How she fought with these powers now. She fought with them, struggled with them on her knees. She tried to crush memory, tried to forget that awful midnight scene ten years ago, her brother's dead body, her father's avenging hand holding her down, as he begged her to do that which she was too feeble, too old to accomplish. His words rang in her ears from across that long vista of the past. Before the face of Almighty God, who sees and hears me, I swear. And she had repeated those words loudly in of her own free will, with her hand resting on her brother's breast, and God himself looking down upon her, for she had called upon him to listen. I swear that I will seek out Paul Day relayed, and in any manner which God may dictate to me encompasses death, his ruin or dishonor in revenge for my brother's death. May my brother's soul remain in torment until the final judgment day if I should break my oath, but may it rest in eternal peace the day on which his death is fitly avenged. Almost it seemed to her as if father and brother were standing by her side as she knelt and prayed. Oh, how she prayed! In many ways she was an only child. All her years had been passed in confinement, either beside her dying father or later between the four walls of the Ursuline convent, and during those years her soul had been fed on a contemplative ecstatic religion, a kind of sanctified superstition, which she would have deemed sacrilege to combat. Her first step into womanhood was taken with that oath upon her lips. Since then, with a stoical sense of duty, she had lashed herself into a daily, hourly remembrance of the great mission imposed upon her. To have neglected it would have been to her equal to denying God. But she had vague ideas of the doctrinal side of religion. Purgatory to her was merely a word, but a word representing a real spiritual state, one of expectancy, of restlessness of sorrow. And vaguely, yet determinedly, she believed that her brother's soul suffered because she had been too weak to fulfill her oath. The church had not come to her rescue. The ministers of her religion were scattered to the four corners of the besieged, agonizing France. She had no one to help her, no one to comfort her. That very peaceful, contemplative life which she had led in the convent only served to enhance her feeling of the solemnity of her mission. It was true, it was inevitable, because it was so hard. To the few who, throughout those troblous times, had kept a feeling of veneration for their religion, this religion had become one of abnegation and martyrdom. A spirit of uncompromising Janssenism seemed to call forth sacrifices in renunciation, whereas the happy-go-lucky Catholicism of the past entry had only suggested an easy-flowered path to a comfortable well-opposedured heaven. The heart of the task seemed which was set before her, the more real it became to Juliet. God, she firmly believed, had at last, after ten years, shown her the way to wreak vengeance upon her brother's murderer. He had brought her to this house, caused her to see and hear part of the conversation between Blakeney and Dayrelade, and this at the moment of all others, when even the semblance of a conspiracy against the Republic would bring the one inevitable result in his train, the grace first, the hasty mock trial, the hall of justice, and the guillotine. She tried not to hate Dayrelade. She wished to judge him coldly and impartially, or rather to indict him before the throne of God, and to punish him for the crime he had committed ten years ago. Her personal feelings must remain out of the question. Had Charlotte Corday considered her own sensibilities, when with her own hand she put an end to Marat? Juliet remained on her knees for hours. She heard Anne-Mierre come home, and Dayrelade's voice of welcome on the landing. This was perhaps the most bitter moment of this awful soul conflict, for it brought to her mind the remembrance of those others who would suffer too, and who were innocent. Madame Dayrelade and poor crippled Anne-Mierre. They had done no wrong, and yet how heavily would they be punished. And then the saner judgment, the human material code of ethics, gained for a while the upper hand. Juliet would rise from her knees, dry her eyes, prepare quietly to go to bed, and to forget all about the awful, relentless fate, was dragged her to the fulfillment of its will, and then sink back, broken-hearted, murmuring in passion prayers for forgiveness to her father, her brother, her god. The soul was young and ardent, and it fought for abnegation, martyrdom, and stern duty. The body was childlike, and it fought for peace, contentment, and quiet reason. The rational body was conquered by the passionate, powerful soul. Blame not the child, for in herself she was innocent. She was but another of the many victims of this cruel, mad hysterical time, that spirit of relentless tyranny, forcing its doctrines upon the weak. With the first break of dawn Juliet at last finally rose from her knees, bathed her burning eyes and head, tidied her hair and dress, then she sat down at the table and began to write. She was a transformed being now, no longer a child, essentially a woman, a Joan of Arc with a mission, a Charlotte Corday going to martyrdom, a human suffering airing soul, committing a great crime for the sake of an idea. She wrote out carefully and with a steady hand that enunciation of Citizen Deputy Day relayed, which has become an historical document, and is preserved in the Chronicles of France. You have all seen it at the Musée Carnivale, in its glass case, its yellow paper and faded ink revealing nothing of the sole conflict of which it was the culminating victory. The cramped, somewhat school-girlish writing is the mute, pathetic witness of one of the saddest tragedies that era of sorrow and crime has ever known. To the representatives of the people now sitting in assembly at the National Convention, you trust and believe in the representative of the people Citizen Deputy Paul Day relayed. He is false and a traitor to the Republic. He is planning and hopes to affect the release of Cedavon Marie Antoinette, widow of the trader Louis Capet. Haste, your representatives of the people, proofs of his assertion papers and plans are still in the house of the Citizen Deputy Day relayed. The statement is made by one who knows. When her letter was written, she read it through carefully, made the one or two little corrections, which are still visible in the document, then folded her missive, hid it within the folds of her kerchief, and, wrapping a dark cloak and hood round her, she slipped noiselessly out of the room. The house was all quiet and still. She shuddered a little as the cool morning air fanned her hot cheeks. It seemed like the breath of ghosts. She rang quickly down the stairs and as rapidly as she could, pushed back the heavy bolts of the front door and slipped out into the street. Already the city was beginning to stir. There was no time for sleep when so much had to be done for the safety of the threatened Republic. As Juliet turned her steps toward the river, she met the crowd of workmen whom France was employing for her defense. Behind her, in the Luxembourg Gardens, and all along the opposite bank of the river, the furnaces were already ablaze and the smiths at work forging the guns. At every step now, Juliet came across the great placards, pinned to the tall gallows-shaped posts which proclaimed to every passing citizen that the people of France are up and in arms. Right across the plassé d'etat Institute, a procession of market cars laden with vegetables and a little fruit, winds its way slowly toward the center of town. They each carry tiny tricolor flags, with a pike and cap of liberties her mounting the flagstaff. They are good patriots, the market gardeners, who come in daily to feed the starving mob of Paris, with the few handfuls of watery potatoes and miserable, vermin-eaten cabbages, which that fraternal revolution still allows them to grow without hindrance. Everyone seems busy with their work thus early in the morning. The business of killing does not begin until later in the day. For the moment Juliet can get along quite unmanlested. The women and children mostly hurrying on towards the vast encampments in the Toularis, where lint and bandages and coats for the soldiers are manufactured all the day. The walls of all the houses bear the great patriotic device, liberté, égalité, fraternité, sinon l'amour. Others are more political in the proclamation, la republique une est indivisible. But on the walls of the Louvre, of the great palace of Willem-Kings, where the Royce alleles held his court and flirted with the prettiest women in France, where the new and great republic has affixed its final mandate, a great poster glued to the wall bears the words, la loi concern les suspects. Below the poster is a huge wooden box with a slit at the top. This is the latest invention for securing the safety of this one and indivisible republic. Henceforth everyone becomes a traitor at one word of denunciation from an idler or an enemy, and, as in the most tyrannical days of the Spanish Inquisition, one half of the nation was set to spy upon the other. That wooden box, with its slit, is put there ready to receive denunciations from one hand against another. Had Juliet paused before the fraction of a second, had she stopped to read the placard setting forth this odious law, had she only reflected, and she would even now have turned back, and fled from that gruesome box of infamies, as she would from a dangerous and noisome reptile or from the pestilence. But her long vigil, her prayers, her ecstatic visions of heroic martyrs, had now completely numbed her faculties. Her vitality, her sensibilities were gone. She had become an automaton gliding to her doom, without a thought or a trimmer. She drew the letter from her bosom, and with a steady hand, dropped it into the box. The irreclaimable had now occurred. Nothing she could henceforth say or do, no prayers or agonized vigils, no miracles even, could undo her action or save Polar Day relayed from trial and guillotine. One or two groups of people hurrying to their work had seen her drop the letter into the box. A couple of small children paused, finger in mouth, gazing at her with the name curiosity. One woman uttered a course just, all of them shrugged their shoulders, and passed on, on their way. Those who habitually crossed the spot were used to such sights. That wooden box, with its mouth like slit, was an insatiable monster that was constantly fed, yet was still giving for more. Having done the deed, Juliet turned, and as rapidly as she had come, so she went back to her temporary home. A home no more now. She must leave it at once, today, if possible. This much she knew, that she no longer could touch the bread of the man she had betrayed. She would not appear at breakfast. She could plead a headache, and in the afternoon patronail should pack her things. She turned into a little shop close by, and asked for a glass of milk and a bit of bread. The woman who served her eyed her with some curiosity, for Juliet just now looked almost out of her mind. She had not yet begun to think, and she had ceased to suffer. Both would come presently, and with them the memory of this last irretrievable hour, and a just estimate of what she had done. CHAPTER XI. VINGENCE IS MINE. The pretense of a headache enabled Juliet to keep in her room the greater part of the day. She would have liked to shut herself out from the entire world during those hours which she spent face to face with her own thoughts and her own sufferings. The sight of Anne-Mier's pathetic little face as she brought her food and delicacies in various little comforts was positive torture to the poor, harrowed soul. At every sound in the great silent house she started up, quivering with apprehension and horror. Had the sword or domicile's which she herself had suspended already fallen over the heads of those who had sworn her nothing but kindness. She could not think of Madame de Relay or of Anne-Mier without the most agonizing, the most torturing shame. And what of him? The man she had so remorselessly, so ruthlessly betrayed to a tribunal which would know no mercy. Juliet endeared not think of him. She had never tried to analyze her feelings with regard to him. At the time of Charlotte Corday's trial, when his sonorous voice rang out in its pathetic appeal for the misguided woman, Juliet had given him ungrudging admiration. She remembered now how strongly his magnetic personality had roused in her a feeling of enthusiasm for the poor girl who had come from the depths of her quiet provincial home in order to accomplish the horrible deed which would mortalize her name through all the ages to come, and cause her countrymen to proclaim her greater than brutus. de Relay was fleeting through the life of that woman, and it was his very appeal which had aroused Juliet's dormant energy, for the cause which her dead father had enjoined her not to forget. It was de Relay again who she had seen but a few weeks ago, standing alone before the mob who would have torn her to pieces, her ringing them on her behalf, speaking to them with that quiet strong voice of his, ruling them with the rule of love and pity, and turning their wrath to gentleness. Did she hate him then? Surely, surely she hated him for having thrust himself into her life, for having caused her brother's death and covered her father's declining years with sorrow, and above all she hated him. Indeed, indeed it was hate, for being the cause of this most hideous action of her life, an action to which she had been driven against her will, one of basest ingratitude and treachery, foreign to every sentiment within her heart, cowardly, abject, the unconscious outcome of the strange magnetism which emanated from him and had cast a spell over her, transforming her individuality and willpower, and making of her an unconscious and automatic instrument of fate. She would not speak of God's finger again. It was fate, pagan, devilish fate, the weird, triveled women who sit and spend their interminable thread. They had decreed and Juliet, unable to fight, blind and broken by the conflict, had succumbed to the Magyras in their relentless wheel. At length, silence and loneliness became unendurable. She called Patronel and ordered her to pack her boxes. We leave for England today, she said curtly. For England, gasped the worthy old soul, who was feeling very happy and comfortable in this hospitable house, and was lost to leave it. So soon? Why, yes. We had talked of it for some time. We cannot remain here always. My cousins DeCracie are there, and my aunt DeColdremont. We shall be among friends, Patronel, if we ever get there. If we ever get there, sighed poor Patronel, we have but very little money, Moshary, and no passports. Have you thought of asking Monsia day relayed for them? No, no, rejoined Juliet hastily. I'll see you to the passports somehow, Patronel. Sir Percy Blakeney is English. He'll tell me what to do. Do you know where he lives, my jewel? Yes, I heard him tell Madame Day Relayed last night that he was lodging with a provincial named Brogarde at the sign of the Crochet Cassé. I will go seek him. Patronel, I am sure he will help me. The English are so resourceful and practical. He'll get us our passports, I know, and advise us as to the best way to proceed. You stay here and get all our things ready. I'll not be long. She took up a cloak and hood, and, throwing them over her arm, she slipped out of the room. Day Relayed had left the house earlier in the day. She hoped that he had not yet returned, and ran down the stairs quickly, so that she might go out unperceived. The house was quite peaceful and still. It seemed strange to Juliet that there did not hang over at some sort of paw-like present event of coming evil. From the kitchen, at some little distance from the hall, Anne-Mier's voice was heard singing an old diddy. Des tatiges, des tachés, pour feuilles, des sachés, au vas-tout. Juliet paused a moment. An awful ache had seized her heart. Her eyes unconsciously filled with tears, as they roamed round the walls of this house, which had sheltered her so hospitably these three weeks past. And now wither was she going. Like the poor dead leaf of the song, she was wasteful, torn from the parent bow, homeless, friendless, having turned against with the one hand which, in this great time apparel, had been extended to her in kindness and in love. Conscience was beginning to rise up against her, and that hydro-headed tyrant remorse. She closed her eyes to shut out the hideous vision of her crime. She tried to forget this home which her treachery had desecrated. Tu vas uva tu chus, o va la fouille de ruse et la fouille de l'orier. Sing, Anne-Mier, plaintively. A great sob broke from Juliet's aching heart. The misery of it all was more than she could bear. Pity her if you can. She had fought and striven and been conquered. A girl's soul is so young, so impressionable, and she had grown up with that one awful, all-pervading idea of duty to accomplish. A most solemn oath to fulfill, once sworn to her dying father, and on the dead body of her brother. She had begged for guidance, prayed for release, and the voice from above had remained silent. Weak, miserable cringing, the human soul, when torn with earthly passion, must look at its own strength for the fight. And now the end had come. That swift, scarce tangible's dream of peace, which had flitted through her mind during the past few weeks, had vanished with the dawn, and she was left desolate, along with her great sin and its lifelong expiation. Scarce knowing what she did, she fell on her knees, there on that threshold, when she was about to leave forever. Fate had placed on her young shoulders a burden too heavy for her to bear. Juliet. At first she did not move. It was his voice coming from the study behind her. Its magic thrilled her, as it had done that day in the Hall of Justice. Strong, passionate tender, it seemed now to raise every echo of response in her heart. She thought it was a dream, and remained there on her knees, lest it should be dispelled. Then she heard his footsteps on the flagstones of the hall. Amie's plaintive singing had died away in the distance. She started and jumped to her feet, hastily drying her eyes. The momentary dream was dispelled, and she was ashamed of her weakness. He, the cause of all her sorrows, of her sin, and of her degradation, had no right to see her suffer. She would have fled out of the house now, but it was too late. He had come out of his study, and, seeing her there on her knees weeping, he came quickly forward, trying, with all the innate chivalry of his upright nature, not to let her see that he had been a witness to her tears. You are going out, mademoiselle? He said courteously, as, wrapping her cloak around her, she was turning towards the door. Yes, yes, she replied hastily. A small errand, I— Is it anything I can do for you? No. If, he added with visible embarrassment, if your errand would brook a delay, might I crave the honour of your presence in my study for a few moments? My errand brooks of no delay, citizen derelaid. She said as compositely as she could. And perhaps on my return I might— I am leaving almost directly, mademoiselle, and I would wish to bid you good-bye. He stood aside to allow her to pass, either out through the street door, or across the hall to his study. There had been no reproach in his voice towards the guest, who was thus leaving him without a word of farewell. Perhaps if there had been any, Juliet would have frebbled. As it was, an unconquerable magnetism seemed to draw her towards him, and, making an almost imperceptible sign of acquiescence, she glided past him into his room. The study was dark and cool, for the room faced the west, and the shutters had been closed in order to keep out the hot August sun. At first Juliet could see nothing, but she felt his presence near her, as he followed her into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. It is kind of you, mademoiselle, he said gently, to accede to my request, which was perhaps presumptuous. But you see, I am leaving this house today, and I had a selfish longing to hear your voice bidding me farewell. Juliet's large, burning eyes were gradually piercing the semi-glue around her. She could see him distinctly now, standing close beside her, in an attitude of the deepest, almost reverential respect. The study was, as usual, neat and tidy, denoting the orderly habits of a man of action and energy. On the ground there was a valise, ready strapped as if for a journey, and on the top of it a bulky letter case of stout pigskin, secured with a small steel lock. Juliet's eyes fastened upon this case with a look of fascination and of horror. Obviously it contained air-laid's papers, the plans for Marie Antoinette's escape, the passports of which he had spoken the day before to his friend, Sir Percy Blakeney, the proofs, in fact, which she had offered to the representatives of the people in support of her denunciation of the citizen deputy. After his request he had said nothing more. He was waiting for her to speak, but her voice felt parched. It seemed to her as if hands of steel were gripping her throat. Smothering the word, she wouldn't have longed to speak. Will you not wish me Godspeed, mademoiselle? He repeated gently. Godspeed? Oh, the awful irony of it all. Should Godspeed him to a mock trial into the guillotine? He was going thither, though he did not know it, and was even now trying to take the hand which had deliberately sent him there. At last she made an effort to speak, and, in a toneless, even voice, she contrived to murmur, You are not going for long, citizen deputy. In these times, mademoiselle, he replied, Any farewell might be forever. But I am actually going for a month to the conciergerie to take charge of the unfortunate prisoner there. For a month, she repeated mechanically. Oh, yes, he said with a smile. You see, our present government is afraid that poor Marie Antoinette will exercise her fascinations over any lieutenant governor of her prison if he remain near her long enough, so a new one is appointed every month. I shall be in charge during this coming bond de mien. I shall hope to return before the equinox. But who can tell? In any case, then, city and day relate. The farewell I bid you tonight will be a very long one. A month will seem a century to me, he said earnestly, since I must spend it without seeing you. But he looked long and searchingly at her. He did not understand her in her present mood, so scared and wild did she seem, so unlike that girlish, lighthearted self which had made the dull old house so bright these past few weeks. But I should not dare to hope, he murmured, that a similar reason would cause you to call that month a long one. She turned perhaps a trifle paler than she had been hitherto, and her eyes roamed around the room like those of a trapped hare seeking to escape. You misunderstand me, city, and day relate, she said at last hurriedly. You have all been kind, very kind, but patronelle and I can no longer trespass on your hospitality. We have friends in England and many enemies here. I know, he interrupted quietly. It would be the most errant selfishness on my part to suggest that you should stay here an hour longer than necessary. I fear that after today my roof may no longer prove a sheltering one for you. But will you allow me to arrange for your safety, as I am arranging for that of my mother and Anne-Mier? My English friend, Sir Percy Bligny, has a yacht in readiness off the Normandy coast. I have already seen to your passports and to all the arrangements of your journey as far as there, and Sir Percy, or one of his friends, will see you safely on board the English yacht. He has given me his promise that he will do this, and I trust him as I would myself. For the journey through France my name is a sufficient guarantee that you will be unlessed, and if you allow it, my mother and Anne-Mier will travel in your company. Then, I pray you stop, Citizen Day relayed. She suddenly interrupted exactly. You must forgive me, but I cannot allow this to make arrangements for me. Patronel and I must do as best we can. All your time and trouble should be spent for the benefit of those who have a claim upon you whilst I, you speak unkindly, mademoiselle. There is no question of claim. And you have no right to think she continued with a growing nervous excitement, drawing her hand hurriedly away, for he had tried to seize it. Ah, pardon me. Here interrupted earnestly. There you are wrong. I have the right to think of you, and for you. The inalienable right conferred upon me by my great love for you. Citizen Deputy. Nays you yet. I know my folly, and I know my presumption. I know the pride of your cast, and of your party. And how much you despise the partisan of the squalid mob of France. Have I said that I aspired to gain your love? I wonder if I have ever dreamed it. I only know, Juliet, that you are to me something akin to the angels, something wide and ethereal, intangible, and perhaps ununderstandable. Yet knowing my folly, I glory in it, my dear. And I would not let you go out of my life without telling you of that, which has made every hour of the past few weeks a paradise for me. My love for you, Juliet. He spoke in that low, impressive voice of his, and with those soft, appealing tones, with which she had once heard him pleading for poor Charlotte Corday. Yet now he was not pleading for himself, not for a selfish wish or for his own happiness, only pleading for his love that she should know of it, and knowing it, had pity in her heart for him, and let him serve her to the end. He did not say anything more for a while. He had taken her hand, which she no longer withdrew from him, for there was sweet pleasure in filling his strong fingers closed tremblingly over hers. He pressed his lips upon her hand, upon the soft palm and delicate wrist, his burning kiss, his bearing witness to the tumultuous passion, which his reverence for her was holding in check. She tried to tear herself away from him, but he would not let her go. Do not go away, just yet, Juliet, he pleaded. Think, I may never see you again, but when you are far from me, in England, perhaps, amongst your own gith and kin, will you try sometimes to think kindly of one who so wildly, so madly, worships you? She would have stilled, had she good, the beating of her heart, which went out to him at last with all the passionate intensity of her great pent-up love. Every word he spoke had its echo within her very soul, and she tried not to hear his tender appeal, not to see his dark head bending in worship before her. She tried to forget his presence, not to know that he was there. He, the man whom she had betrayed to serve her own miserable vengeance, whom, in her mad exalted rage, she had thought that she hated, but whom she now knew that she loved better than her life, better than her soul, her traditions, or her oath. Now, at this moment, she made every effort to conjure up the vision of her brother brought home dead upon a stretcher, of her father's declining years, rendered hideous by the mind unhinged through a great sorrow. She tried to think of the avenging finger of God pointing the wage to the fulfillment of her oath, and called to him to stand by her in this terrible agony of her soul. And God spoke to her at last, through the eternal vistas of boundless universe, from that heaven which had known no pity. His voice came to her now, clear, awesome, and implacable. Vengeance is mine. I will repay. CHAPTER XII. IN THE NAME OF THE REPUBLIC. Absorbed in his thoughts, his dreams, his present happiness, day-relate had heard nothing of what was going on in the house during the past few seconds. At first, to Anne-Mierre, who was still singing her melancholy diddy over her work in the kitchen, there seemed nothing unusual in the peremptory ring at the front door-bill. She pulled down her sleeves over her thin arms, smoothed down her cooking apron, then only did she run to see who the visitor might be. As soon as she had opened the door, however, she understood. Five men were standing before her, four of whom wore the uniform of the National Guard, and the fifth, the tricolor scarfed fringe with gold, which denoted service under the convention. This man seemed to be in command of the others, and he immediately stepped into the hall, followed by his four companions who, had assigned from him, effectively cut off Anne-Mierre from what had been her imminent purpose, namely to run to the study and warn day-relate of his danger. That it was danger of the most certain, the most deadly kind she had never doubted for one moment. Even had her instinct not warned her, she would have guessed. One glance at the five men had suffice to tell her, their attitude, their curt word of command, their air of authority as they crossed the hall, everything revealed the purpose of their visit, a domiciliary search in the house of citizen-deputy day-relate. Merlene's law of the suspect was in full operation. Someone had denounced the citizen-deputy to the committee of public safety, and in this year of grace, 1793, and one of the revolution, men and women were daily sent to the guillotine on suspicion. Anne-Mierre would have screened how she dared, but instincts such as hers was far too keen to betray her into so injudicious an act. She felt that, where Paul day-relates eyes upon her at this moment, you would wish her to remain calm and outwardly serene. The foremost man, he with the tricolor scarf, had already crossed the hall and was standing outside the study-door. It was his word of command which first browsed day-relate from his dream. In the name of the Republic! Day-relate did not immediately drop the small hand, which a moment ago he had been covering with kisses. He held it to his lips once more, very gently, lingering over this last fond caress, as if over an eternal farewell, then he straightened out his broad, well-knit figure and turned to the door. He was very pale, but there was neither fear nor even surprise he expressed in his earnest, deep-set eyes. They still seemed to be looking afar, gazing upon a heaven-born vision, which the touch of her hand and the avowal of his love had conjured up before him. In the name of the Republic! Once more for the third time, according to custom, the words rang out, clear, distinct, peremptory. In that one fraction of a second, whilst those six words were spoken, Day-relate's eyes wandered swiftly towards the heavy letter case, which now held his condemnation, and a wild, mad thought, the mere animal desire to escape from danger, surged up in his brain. The plans for the escape of Marie Antoinette, the various passports, worded in accordance with the possible disguises the unfortunate queen might assume, all these papers were more than sufficient proof of what would be termed his treason against the Republic. He could already hear the indictment against him, could see the filthy mob of Paris dancing a wild saraben round the tumbrel, which bore him towards the guillotine. He could hear the yells of execration, and could feel the insults hurled against him by those who had most admired, most envied him, and from all this he would have escaped, if he could, if it had not been too late. It was but a second, or lest, whilst the words were spoken outside the door, and whilst all other thoughts in him were absorbed in this one mad desire for escape, he even made a movement, as if to snatch up the letter case and to hide it about his person, but it was heavy and bulky, it would be sure to attract attention, and might bring upon him the additional indignity of being forced to submit to a personal search. He caught Juliet's eyes fixed upon him with an intensity of gaze which, in that same one mad moment, revealed to him the depths of her love. Then the second's weakness was gone. He was once more quiet, firm, the man of action, accustomed to meet danger boldly, to rule and to subdue the most turgid mob. With the quiet shrug of the shoulders, he dismissed all thought of the compromising letter case and went to the door. Already, as no reply had come to the third word of command, it had been thrown open from outside, and they relayed found himself face to face with the five men. Citizen Merlin, he said quietly, as he recognized the foremost among them, himself, Citizen Deputy, rejoined the latter with the sneer, at your service. Ann Mille, in a remote corner of the hall, had heard the name, and felt her very soul sicken at its sound. Merlin, author of that infamous law of the suspect which had set man against man, a father against his son, brother against brother, and friend against friend, had made of every human creature a bloodhound on the track of his fellow men, dogging in order not to be dogged, denouncing, spying, hounding, in order not to be denounced. And he, Merlin, gloried in this, the most fiendishly evil law ever perpetrated for the degradation of the human race. There is that sketch of him in the Mosaic Arnavale, drawn just before he, in his turn, went to expiate his crimes on that very guillotine, which he had sharpened and wielded so powerfully against his fellows. The artist as well caught the slouchy, slovenly look of this loosely knit figure, his long limbs and narrow head, with the snake-like eyes and slightly receding chin. Like Marat, his model and prototype, Merlin affected dirty, ragged clothes. The real sans galothism, the downward leveling of his fellow men to the lowest rung of the social ladder, pervaded every action of this noted product of a great revolution. The even day relayed, whose entire soul was filled with a great all understanding pity for the weaknesses of mankind, recoiled at sight of this incarnation of the spirit of squalor and degradation, of all that was left of the noble utopian theories of the makers of the revolution. Merlin grinned when he saw day-relate standing there, calm and passive, well-dressed, as if prepared to receive an honored guest, rather than a summons to submit to the greatest indignity a proud man has ever been called upon to suffer. Merlin had always hated the popular citizen deputy. Friend and boon companion of Marat and his gang, he had for over two years now exerted all the influence he possessed in order to bring day-relate under a cloud of suspicion. The day-relate had the ear of the populace. No one understood as he did the tone of a Paris mob and the National Convention, ever terrified of the volcano it had kindled, felt that a popular member of its assembly was more useful alive than dead. But now at last Merlin was having his way. An anomalous denunciation against day-relate had reached the public prosecutor that day. Tenville and Merlin were the fastest of friends, so the latter easily obtained the privilege of being the first to proclaim to his hated enemy the news of his downfall. He stood facing day-relate for a moment, enjoying the present situation to its full. The light from the vast hall struck upon the powerful figure of the citizen deputy and upon his firm dark face and magnetic restless eyes. Behind him the study, with its closely drawn shutters, appeared wrapped in gloom. Merlin turned to his men and still delighted with his position of a cat playing with a mouse. He pointed to day-relate with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. Vois-es-moi donc ça. He said with a coarse jest and expectorating contemptuously upon the floor. The aristocrat seems not to understand that we are here in the name of the Republic. There is a very good proverb, citizen deputy. He added, once more addressing day-relate, which you seem to have forgotten. That is that the picture which goes too often to the well breaks at last. You have conspired against the liberties of the people for the past ten years. Retribution has come to you at last. The people of France have come to their senses. The National Convention wants to know what treason you are hatching between these four walls, and has deputed me to find out all there is to know. At your service, citizen deputy, said day-relate, quietly stepping aside in order to make way for Merlene and his men. Resistance was useless, and, like all strong-determined natures, he knew it was best to give in. During this while, Juliet had neither moved nor uttered a sound. Little more than a minute had to lap since the moment when the first peremptory order, to open in the name of the Republic, had sounded like the toxin through the stillness of the house. Day-relate's kisses were still hot upon her hand, and his words of love were still ringing in her ears. And now this awful, deadly peril, which she, with her own hand, had brought on the man she loved. If in one moment's anguish the soul be allowed to expiate a life-long sin, then indeed did Juliet atone during this one terrible second. Her conscience, her heart, her entire being, rose in revolt against her crime. Her oath, her life, her final denunciation appeared before her in all their hideousness. And now it was too late. Day-relate stood facing Merlin, his most implacable enemy. The latter was giving orders to his men, preparatory to searching the house, and there, just on top of the valise, lay the letter case, obviously containing those papers, to which the day before she had over her day-relate making illusion, whilst he spoke to his friends her Percy Blakeney. An unexplainable instinct seemed to tell her that the papers were in that case. Her eyes were riveted to it, as if fascinated. An awful terror hailed her enthralled for one second more, whilst her thoughts, her longings, her desires, were all centered on the safety of that one thing. The next instant she had seized it and thrown it upon the sofa. Then, sitting herself beside it, with the gesture of a queen in the grace of a Parisian, she had spread the ample folds of her skirts over the compromising case, hiding it entirely from view. Merlin and the hall was ordering two men to stand on each side of day-relate, and two more men to follow him into the room. Now he entered it himself, his narrow eyes trying to pierce the semi-obscurity which was rendered more palpable by the brilliant light in the hall. He had not seen Juliet's gesture, but he had heard the frou-fou of her skirts, as she seated herself upon the sofa. You are not the lone Citizen Deputy, I see, he said with a sneer, as his snake-like eyes lighted upon the young girl. My guess, Citizen Merlin, replied day-relate as calmly as he could. Citizen Juliet, Marny. I know that it is useless under these circumstances to ask for consideration for a woman, but I pray you to remember, as far as as possible, that although we are all Republicans, we are also Frenchmen, and all still equal in our sentiment of chivalry towards our mothers, our sisters, or our guests. Merlin chuckled and gazed for a moment ironically at Juliet. He had held between his talent-like fingers that very morning a thin scrap of paper on which a school girlish hand had scrawled the denunciation against Citizen Deputy day-relate. Course in nature, and still coarser in thoughts, this representative of the people had very quickly arrived at a conclusion in his mind, with regard to this so-called guest in the day-relate household, a discarded mistress. He muttered to himself, just had another scene, I suppose. He's got tired of her, and she's given him way out of spite. Satisfied with his explanation of the situation, he was quite inclined to be amiable to Juliet. Moreover, he had caught sight of the valise, and almost thought that the young girl's eyes had directed his attention towards it. Open those shutters, he commanded. This place is like a vault. One of the men obeyed immediately, and as the brilliant August Sun came streaming into the room, Merlin once more turned to day-relate. Information has been laid against you, Citizen Deputy. He said, by an anonymous writer, who states that you have just now in your possession correspondence or other papers intended for the widow could pay, and the Committee of Public Safety has entrusted me and these citizens to see such correspondence and make you answerable for its presence in your house. They relayed hesitated for one brief fraction of a second. As soon as the shutters had been open, and the room flooded in daylight, he had at once perceived that his lettercase had disappeared, and guessed, from Juliet's attitude upon the sofa, that she had concealed it about her person. It was this which caused him to hesitate. His heart was filled with boundless gratitude to her for her noble effort to save him, but he would have given his life at this moment to undo what she had done. The terrorists were no respecters of persons or of sex. Audomiciliary search order, in those days, conferred full powers on those in authority, and Juliet might, at any moment now, be peremptorily ordered to rise. Through her action she had made herself one with the citizen deputy. If the case were founded under the folds of her skirts, she would be accused of connivance, or at any rate of the equally grave charge of shielding a traitor. The manly pride in him rebelled at the thought of owing his immediate safety to a woman, yet he could not now discard her help, without compromising her irretrievably. He dared not even to look again towards her, for he felt that at this moment her life as well as his own lay in the quiver of an eyelid, and Merlene's keen, narrow eyes were fixed upon him in eager search for a tremor, a flash which might betray fear or prove an admission of guilt. Juliet sat there, calm and passive, disdainful, and she seemed to darelade more angelic, more unattainable even than before. He could have worshiped her for her heroism, her resourcefulness, her quiet aloofness from all these coarse creatures who filled the room with the odor of their dirty clothes, with their rough jests, and their noisome suggestions. Well, citizen deputy, sneered Merlene after a while. You do not reply, I notice. The insinuation is unworthy of a reply, citizen. Reply, darelade, quietly. My services to the public are well known. I should have thought that the Committee of Public Safety would disdain an anonymous denunciation against a fateful servant of the people of France. The Committee of Public Safety knows its own business best, citizen deputy. Rejoined Merlene roughly. If the accusation prove a calumny, so much the better for you. I presume, he added with a sneer, that you do not propose to offer any resistance whilst these citizens and I search your house. Without another word, darelade handed a bunch of keys to the man by his side. Every kind of opposition, argument even, would be worse than useless. Merlene had ordered the valise and desk to be searched, and two men were busy turning out the contents above them to the floor. But the desk now only contained a few private household accounts and notes for the various features which darelade had at various times delivered in the assemblies of the National Convention. Among these, a few pencil jottings for his great defense of Charlotte Corday were eagerly seized upon by Merlene and his grimy, claw-like hands bashing upon the scrap of paper as upon a welcome pray. But there was nothing else of any importance. Darelade was a man of thought and of action, with all the enthusiasm of real conviction, but none of the carolousness of a fanatic. The papers which were contained in the letter case and which he was taking with him to the conciergerie, he considered were necessary to the success of his plans, otherwise he never would have kept them, and they were the only proofs that could be brought up against him. The valise itself was only packed with a few necessities for a month's sojourn at the conciergerie, and the men under Merlene's guidance were vainly trying to find something, anything that might be construed into a reasonable correspondence with the unfortunate prisoner there. Merlene, whilst his men were busy with the search, was sprawling in one of the big, leather-covered chairs, on the arms of which his dirty fingernails were beating an impatient devil's tattoo. He was at no pains to conceal the intense disappointment which he would experience were his errand to prove fruitless. His narrow eyes every now and then wandered towards Juliet, as if asking for her help and guidance. She, understanding his frame of mind, responded to the look. Shutting her mentality off from the coarse suggestion of his attitude towards her, she played her part with cunning and without flinching. With a glance here and there, she directed the men in their search. Dayer laid himself to scarcely refrain from looking at her. He was puzzled and vaguely marveled at the perfection with which she carried through her role to the end. Merlene found himself baffled. He knew quite well that the citizen deputy Dayer laid was not a man to be lightly dealt with. No mere suspicion or anonymous denunciation would be suspicion in his case to bring him before the tribunal of the revolution. Unless there were proofs, positive, irrefutable, damnable proofs, of Paul Dayer laid's treachery, the public prosecutor would never dare to frame in an indictment against him. The mob of Paris would rise to defend his idol. The hideous hags who plied their knitting at the foot of the scaffold would tear the guillotine down before they would allow Dayer laid to mount it. This was Dayer laid stronghold, the people of Paris, whom he had loved through all their infamy and whom he had suckered and help in their private need, and above all the women of Paris whose children he had caused to be tended in the hospitals which he had built for them, this that they had not yet forgotten, and Merlin knew it. One day they would forget, soon perhaps, then they would turn on their formal idol and howling, send him to his death, amidst cries of rank or an execration. When that day came, there would be no need to worry about treason or about proofs. When the populace had forgotten all that he had done, then they were laid would fall. But that time was not yet. The men had finished ransacking the room. Every scrap of paper, every portable article had been eerily seized upon. Merlin, half blind with fury, had jumped to his feet. Search him, he ordered peremptorily. They relayed, set his teeth, and made no protest, calling up every fiber of moral strength within him, to aid him in submitting to this indignity. At a course just for Merlin, he buried his hands into the palms of his hand, not to strike the foul mouthed creaster in the face. But he submitted and stood in passive by, whilst the pockets of his coat were turned inside out by the rough hands of the soldiers. All the while Juliet had remained silent, watching Merlin as any hawk would its prey. But the terrorist, through the very coarseness of his nature, was in this case completely fooled. He knew that it was Juliet who had denounced error-laid, and had satisfied himself as to her motive. Because he was low and brutish and degraded, he never once suspected the truth, never saw in that beautiful young woman anything of the double nature within her, of that curious, self-torturing, at times morbid sense of religion and of duty, at war with her own upright, innately healthy disposition. The low-born, self-degraded terrorist had put his own construction on Juliet's action, and with this he was satisfied, since it answered to his own estimate of the human race, the race which he was doing his best to bring down to the level of the beast. Therefore Merlin did not interfere with Juliet, but contended himself with insincentuating by just an action, what her share in this day's work had been. To these hints day-relayed, of course, paid no heed. For him, Juliet was as far above political intrigue as the angels. He would have soon have suspected one of the saints in trying to Notre-Dame as this beautiful, almost ethereal creature who had been sent by heaven to glide in his heart and to elevate his very thought. But Juliet understood Merlin's attitude, and guessed that her written denunciation had come into his hands. Her every thought, her living sensation within her, was centered in this one thing, to save the man she loved from the consequences of her own crime against him. And for this, even the shadow of suspicion must be removed from him. Merlin's iniquitous laws should not touch him again. When day-relayed had at last been released, after the outrage to which he had been personally subjected, Merlin was literally and figuratively too, looking about him for an issue to his present dubious position. Judging others by his own standard of conduct, he feared now that the popular citizen deputy would incite the mob against him in revenge for the indignities which he had had to suffer. And with it all, the terrorist was convinced that day-relayed was guilty, that proofs of his treason did exist, if only he knew where to lay hands on them. He turned to Juliet with an unexpressed query in his Adderlack eyes. She shrugged her shoulders and made a gesture as if pointing towards the door. There are other rooms in the house besides this. Her gesture seemed to say, Try them, the proofs are there. Tis for you to find them. Merlin had been standing between her and day-relayed, so that the latter saw neither quarry nor reply. You are cunning, citizen deputy, said Merlin now, turning towards him. And no doubt you have been at pains to put your treasonable correspondence out of the way. You must understand that the Committee of Public Safety will not be satisfied with the mere examination of your study, he added, assuming an era of ironical benevolence, and I presumed you will have no objection if I and these citizen soldiers pay a visit to other portions of your house. As you please, responded day-relayed dryly, you will accompany us, citizen deputy, commanded the other curtly. The four men of the National Guard formed themselves into line outside the study door. With a peremptory nod, Merlin ordered day-relayed to pass between them, then he too prepared to follow. At the door he turned, and once more faced Juliet. As for you, citizeness, he said with a sudden access of viciousness against her, if you have brought us here on a fool's errand it will go ill with you remember. Do not leave the house until our return. I may have some questions to put to you. CHAPTER XII. Juliet waited a moment or two until the footsteps of the six men died away up the massive oak stairs. For the first time, since the sword of Domocles had fallen, she was alone with her thoughts. She had but a few minutes at her command in which to devise an issue out of these tangled meshes, which she had woven round the man she loved. Merlene and his men would return anon. The comedy could not be kept up through another visit from them, and while the compromising letter case was in Daerlead's private study, he was in imminent danger at the hands of his enemy. She thought for a moment of concealing the case about her person, but a second's reflection showed her the futility of such a move. She had not seen the papers themselves. Any one of them might be an absolute proof of Daerlead's guilt. The correspondence might be in his handwriting. If Merlene, furious, baffled vicious, were to order her to be searched, the horror of the indignity made her shudder, but she would have submitted to that if thereby she could have saved Daerlead, but of this she could not be sure until after she had looked through the papers, and this she had not the time to do. Her first and greatest idea was to get out of this room, his private study with the compromising papers. Not a trace of them must be found here if he were to remain beyond suspicion. She rose from the sofa and peeped through the door. The hall was now deserted. From the left wing of the house, on the floor above, the heavy footsteps of the soldiers, and Merlene's occasional brutish laugh could be distinctly heard. Juliet listened for a moment, trying to understand what was happening. Yes, they had all gone to Daerlead's bedroom, which was on the extreme left, at the end of the first floor landing. There might be just time to accomplish what she had now resolved to do. As best she could, she hid the bulky letter case in the folds of her skirt. It was literally neck or nothing now. If she were caught on the stairs by one of the men, nothing could save her or, possibly, Daerlead. At any rate, by remaining where she was, by leaving the events to shape themselves, discovery was an absolute certain. She chose to take the risk. She slipped noiselessly out of the room and up the great oak stairs. Merlene and his men, busy with her search and Daerlead's bedroom, took no heed of what was going on behind them. Juliet arrived on the landing and turned sharply to her right, running noiselessly along the thick obisyn carpet and thence quickly to her own room. All this had taken less than a minute to accomplish. The very next moment she heard Merlene's voice ordering one of his men to stand at attention on the landing, but by that time she was safe inside her room. She closed the door noiselessly. Patronel, who had been busy all the afternoon packing up her young mistress's things, had fallen asleep in an arm chair. Unconscious of the terrible events which were rapidly succeeding each other in the house, the worthy old soul was snoring peaceably, with her hands complacently folded on her ample bosom. Juliet, for the moment, took no notice of her. As quickly and as dexterously as she could, she was tearing open the heavy leather case with a sharp pair of scissors and very soon as contents were scattered before her on the table. One glance at them was sufficient to convince her that most of the papers would undoubtedly, if found, send a relay to the guillotine. Most of the correspondence was in the citizen deputies handwriting. She had, of course, no time to examine it more closely, but instinct naturally told her that it was of a highly compromising character. She gathered the papers up into a heap, tearing some of them up into strips. Then she spread them out upon the ash pan in front of the large earthenware stove which stood in a corner of the room. Unfortunately, this was a hot day in August. Her task would have been far easier if she had wished to destroy a bundle of papers in the depth of winter when there was a good fire burning in the stove. But her purpose was firm in her incentive, the greatest that has ever spurred mankind to heroism. Regardless of any consequences to herself, she had but the one object in view to save day related all costs. On the wall facing her bed and immediately above a velvet-covered predua, there was a small figure of the virgin and child, one of those quaintly pretty devices for holding holy water, which the reverence superstition of the past century rendered a necessary adjunct of every girl's room. In front of the figure, a small lamp was kept perpetually burning. This Juliet now took between her fingers carefully, lest the tiny flame should die out. First she poured the oil over the fragments of paper in the ash pan. Then with the wick she set fire to the whole compromising correspondence. The oil helped the paper to burn quickly. The smell, or perhaps the presence of Juliet in the room, caused worthy old Patronel to wake. It's nothing, Patronel, said Juliet quietly. Only a few old letters I am burning, but I want to be alone for a few minutes. Will you go down to the kitchen until I call you? A custom to do as her young mistress commanded, Patronel rose without a word. I have finished putting away you a few things, my Jewel. There there. Why didn't you tell me to burn your papers for you? You have sold your dear hands and— Patronel, said Juliet impatiently, and gently pushing the garrulous old woman towards the door. Run to the kitchen now quickly, and don't come out of it until I call you. And Patronel, she added, you will see soldiers about the house perhaps. Soldiers, the good God have mercy. Don't be frightened, Patronel, but they may ask you questions. Questions? Yes, about me. My treasure, my Jewel, exclaimed Patronel alarm. Have those devils no, no, nothing has happened as yet, but you know in these times there is always danger. Good God, Holy Mary, Mother of God! Nothing will happen if you try to keep quite calm and do exactly as I tell you. Go to the kitchen and wait there until I call you. If the soldiers come in and question you, if they try to frighten you, remember that we have nothing to fear from men, and that our lives are in God's keeping. All the while that Juliet spoke, she was watching the heap of paper being gradually reduced to ashes. She tried to fan the flames as best she could, but some of the correspondence was on tough paper and was slow in being consumed. Patronel, tearful but obedient, prepared to leave the room. She was overawed by her mistresses' error of aloofness. The pale face rendered ethereally beautiful by the suffering she had gone through. The eyes glowed large and magnetic as if in the presence of spiritual visions beyond mortal kin. The golden hair looked like a saintly halo above the white, immaculate young brow. Patronel made the sign of the cross as if she were in the presence of a saint. As she opened the door there was a sudden draught, and the last flickering flame died out in the ash pan. Juliet, seeing that Patronel had gone, hastily turned over the few half-burnt fragments of paper that were left, and none of them had the writing remained legible. All that was compromising today related was effectually reduced to dust. The small wick in the lamp at the foot of the virgin and child had burnt itself out for want of oil. There was no means for Juliet to strike another light and to destroy what remained. The leather case was, of course, still there, with its sides ripped open, an indestructible thing. There was nothing to be done about that. Juliet, after a second hesitation, threw it among her dresses in the valise, then she too went out of the room. Chapter 14 A happy moment The search in the citizen deputy's bedroom had proved as fruitless as that in his study. Erling was beginning to have vague doubts as to whether he had been effectively fooled. His manner towards day-related had undergone a change. He had become suave and unctuous. A kind of elephantine ivory pervading his laborious attempts at conciliation. He and the public prosecutor would be severely blamed for this day's work, if the popular deputy, relying upon the support of the people of Paris, chose to take his revenge. In France, in this glorious year of the Revolution, there was but one step between censure and indictment. And Merlien knew it. Therefore, although he had not given up all hope of finding proof of day-related treason, although by the latter's attitude he remained quite convinced that such proof did exist. He was already reckoning upon the cat's paw, the sop he would offer to that Cerberus, the Committee of Public Safety, in exchange for his own exculpation in the matter. This sop would be Juliet, the denunciator, instead of day-related the denounced. But he was still seeking for the proofs. Somewhat changing his tactics, he had allowed day-related to join his mother in the living-room, and had be taken himself to the kitchen in search of an amie, whom he had previously caught sight of in the hall. There he also found old patronelle, whom he could scare out of her wits to his heart's content, but from whom he was quite unable to extract any useful information. Patronelle was too stupid to be dangerous, and an amie was too much on the alert. But with a vague idea that a cunning man might choose the most unlikely places for the concealment of compromising property, he was ransacking the kitchen from floor to ceiling. In the living-room Day-related was doing his best to reassure his mother, who, in her turn, was forcing herself to be brave and not to show by her tears how deeply she feared for the safety of her son. As soon as Day-related had been freed from the presence of the soldiers, he had hastened back to his study, only to find that Juliet had gone, and that the letter case had also disappeared. Not knowing what to think, trembling for the safety of the woman he adored, he was just debating whether he would seek for her in her own room, when she came towards him across the landing. Here seemed a halo around her now. Day-related felt that she had never been so beautiful, and to him so unattainable. Something told him then that at this moment she was as far away from him, as if she were an inhabitant of another more ethereal planet. When she saw him coming towards her, she put a finger to her lips and whispered, Sh, sh, the papers are destroyed, burned, and I owe my safety to you. He had set it with his whole soul, an infinity of gratitude filled his heart, a joy in pride in that she had cared for his safety. But at his word she had grown paler than she was before. Her eyes, large, dilated, and dark, were fixed upon him with an intensity of gaze which almost startled him. He thought that she was about to faint. At the emotions of the past half-hour had been too much for her overstrung nerves. He took her hand and gently dragged her into the living room. She sank into a chair as if utterly weary and exhausted, and he, forgetting his danger, forgetting the world and all else besides, knelt at her feet and held her hands in his. She set bolt upright, her great eyes still fixed upon him. The first it seemed as if she could not be satiated with looking at her. He felt as if he had never never really seen her. She had been a dream of beauty to him ever since that awful afternoon when he had held her, half-fainting in his arms and had dragged her under the shelter of his roof. From that hour he had worshipped her. She had cast over him the magic spell of her refinement, her beauty, that aroma of youth in innocence which makes such a strong appeal to the man of sentiment. He had worshipped her and not tried to understand. He would have deemed it almost sacrilege to pry into the mysteries of her in herself, of that second nature in her times made her silent and almost morose and cast a lurid gloom over her young beauty. And though his love for her had grown in intensity it had remained as heaven-born as he deemed her to be. The love of a mortal for a saint, the ecstatic adoration of a Saint Francis for his Madonna. Sir Percy Blankney had called day-related an idealist. He was that in the strictest sense and Juliet had embodied all that was best in his idealism. It was for the first time today that he had held her hand just for a moment longer than mere conventionality allowed. The first kiss on her fingertips had sent the blood rushing wildly to his heart. But he still worshipped her and gazed upon her as a divinity. She set bolt upright in the chair, abandoning her small cold hands to his burning grasp. His very senses ached with the longing to clasper in his arms to draw her to him and to feel her pulses be closer against his. It was almost torture now to gaze upon her beauty, that small oval face almost like a child's. The large eyes which at times had seemed to be blue but which now appeared to be a deep, unfathomable color like a tempestuous sea. Juliet, he murmured at last, as his soul went out to her in a passion appeal for the first kiss. A shudder seemed to go through her entire frame. Her varied lips turned white and cold and he, not understanding, timorous, shilverous and humble, thought that she was propelled by his ardor and frightened by a passion to which she was too pure to respond. Nothing but that one word had been spoken, just her name and appeal from a strong man, overmastered at last by his boundless love and she, poor stricken soul who had so much love so deeply wronged him, shuddered at the thought of what she might have done had fate not helped her to save him. Half ashamed of his passion, he bowed his dark head over her hands and, once more forcing himself to be calm now, he kissed her fingertips reverently. When he looked up again, the hard lines in her face had softened and two tears were slowly trickling down her pale cheeks. Will you forgive me, Madonna? He said gently, I am only a man and you are very beautiful. No, don't take your little hands away. I am quite calm now and know how one should speak to angels. Reason, justice, rectitude, everything was urging Juliet to close her ears to the words of love, spoken by the man whom she had betrayed. But who shall blame her for listening to the sweetest sounds the ears of a woman can never hear? The sound of the voice of the loved one in his first declaration of love. She sat and listened while she whispered to her those soft and dearing words of which a strong man alone possesses the enchanting secret. She sat and listened whilst all around her was still. Madame Des Roulades at the farther end of the room was softly muttering a few prayers. They were all alone these two in the mad and beautiful world which man has created for himself, the world of romance, that world more wonderful than any heaven, where only those may enter who have learned the sweet lesson of love. Des Roulades roamed in it at will. He had created his own romance, wherein he was as a humble worshipper, spending his life in the service of his Madonna. And she too forgot the earth, forgot the reality. Her oath, her crime, and its punishment and began to think that it was good to live, good to love, and good to have at her feet the one man in all the world whom she could fondly worship. Who shall tell what he whispered? Enough that she listened and that she smiled, and he, seeing her smile, felt happy. In chapters 13 and 14 chapters 15 and 16 of I Will Repay This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Annie Kirkpatrick. I Will Repay by Baroness Ortsy. Chapter 15 Detected The opening and shutting of the door roused them both from their dreams. And me, a pale, trembling with eyes looking wild and terrified, had glided into the room. Day related sprung to his feet. In a moment he had thrust his own happiness into the background at sight of the poor child's obvious suffering. He went quickly towards her and would have spoken to her, but she run past him up to Madam Day Relayed, as if she were beside herself with some unexplainable terror. And me, he said firmly, what is it? Have those devils dared? In a moment reality had come rushing back upon him with full force, and bitter reproaches surged up in his heart against himself, for having in this moment of selfless joy forgotten those who looked up to him for help and protection. He knew the temper of the brutes who had been set upon his track, knew that low-minded Merlene in his noisome ways and blamed himself severely for having left Anne-Mierre and patronelle alone with him even for a few moments. But Anne-Mierre quickly reassured him. They have not molested us much, she said, speaking with the visible effort and enforced calmness. Patronelle and I were together, and they made us open all the cupboards and uncover all the dishes. Then they asked us many questions. Questions? Of what kind? asked Day Relayed. About you, Paul, replied Anne-Mierre, and about my mind, and also about about the citizeness, your guest. Day Relayed looked at her closely, vaguely wondering at the strange attitude of the child. She was evidently laboring under some strong excitement, and in her thin, brown little hand she was clutching a piece of paper. Anne-Mierre, child, he said very gently, you seem quite upset, as if something terrible had happened. What is that paper you are holding, my dear? Anne-Mierre gazed down upon it. She was obviously making frantic efforts to maintain herself position. Juliette at first side of Anne-Mierre seemed literally to have been turned to stone. She set upright, rigid as a statue, her eyes fixed upon the poor, crippled girl, as if upon an inexorable judge, about to pronounce sentence upon her of life or death. Instinct, that keen sense of coming danger, which nature sometimes gives to her elect, had told her that, within the next few seconds, her doom would be sealed, that fate would descend upon her, holding the sword of nemesis, and it was Anne-Mierre's tiny, half-striveled hand which had placed that sword into the grasp of fate. What is that paper? Will you let me see it, Anne-Mierre? Repeated day relayed. Citizen Merlien gave it to me just now, began Anne-Mierre more quietly. He seems very wroth at finding nothing compromising against you, Paul. They were a long time in the kitchen, and now they have gone to search my room in patronels. But Merlien, oh, that awful man! He seemed like a beast infuriated with his disappointment. Yes, yes. I don't know what he hoped to get out of me, for I told him that you never spoke to your mother or to me about your political business, and that I was not in the habit of listening at the key-holes. Yes, and then he began to speak of our guest. But, of course, there again I could tell him nothing. He seemed to be puzzled as to who had denounced you. He spoke about an anonymous denunciation which reached the public prosecutor early this morning. It was written on a scrap of paper and thrown into the public box, it seems, and it is indeed very strange, said day relayed, musing over this extraordinary occurrence, and still more over Anne-Mierre's strange excitement and the telling of it. I never knew I had a hidden enemy. I wonder if I shall ever find out. That is just what I said to Citizen Merlene, rejoined Anne-Mierre. What? That I wondered if you or any of us who love you will ever find out who your hidden enemy might be. It was a mistake to talk so fully with such a brute little one. I didn't say much, and I thought it wisest to humor him as he seemed to wish to talk on that subject. Well, and what did he say? He laughed and asked me if I would very much like to know. I hope you said no, Anne-Mierre. Indeed, indeed, I said yes. She retorted with sudden energy, her eyes fixed now upon Juliet, who still set rigid and silent, watching every movement of Anne-Mierre from the moment in which she began to tell her story. Would I not wish to know who is your enemy, Paul? Creature who was base and treacherous enough to attempt to deliver you into the hands of those merciless villains. What wrong had you done to any one? Sh! Hush, Anne-Mierre. You were too excited. He said, smiling now in spite of himself, at the young girl's vehemence over what he thought was but a trifle, the discovery of his own enemy. I am sorry, Paul. How can I help being excited? Rejoined Anne-Mierre with quaint pathetic gentleness. When I speak of such base treachery as that which Merlene has suggested. Well, and what did he suggest? He did more than suggest, whispered Anne-Mierre almost inaudibly. He gave me this paper. The anonymous denunciation which reached the public prosecutor this morning. He thought one of us might recognize the handwriting. Then she paused, some five steps away from Dayer-Lade, holding out towards him the crumpled paper, which up to now she had clutched determinedly in her hand. Dayer-Lade was about to take it from her. And just before he had turned to do so, his eyes lighted on Juliet. She said nothing. She had merely risen instinctively and had reached Anne-Mierre's side in less than the fraction of a second. It was all a flash, and there was dead silence in the room, but in that one hundredth part of a second. Dayer-Lade had read guilt in the face of Juliet. It was nothing but instinct, a sudden awful unexplainable revelation. Her soul seemed suddenly to stand before him, in all its misery, and in all its sin. It was if the fire from heaven had ascended in one terrific crash, bearing beneath its devastating flames his ideals, his happiness, and his divinity. She was no longer there. His Madonna had ceased to be. There stood before him a beautiful woman, on whom he had lavished all the pent-up treasures of his love, whom he had suckered, sheltered, and protected, and who had repaid him thus. She had forced an entry into his house, she had spied upon him, dogged him, lied to him. The moment was too sudden, too awful for him to make even a wild guess at her motives. His entire life, his whole past, the present and the future, were all blotted out in this awful dispersal of his most cherished dream. He had forgotten everything else to save her appalling treachery. How could he even remember that once, long ago, in fair fight, he had killed her brother? She did not even try now to hide her guilt. A look of appeal, touching in its trustfulness, went out to him, begging him to spare her further shame. Perhaps she felt that love, such as his, could not be killed in the flash. His entire nature was full of pity, and to that pity she made a final appeal, lest she should be humiliated before Madam Deer laid an ennie. And he, still under the spell of those magic moments when he had knelt at her feet, understood her prayer, and closing his eyes, just for one brief moment in order to shut out, forever, that radiant vision of a pure angel whom he had worshipped, turned quietly to ennie. Give me that paper, ennie. He said coldly. I may perhaps recognize the handwriting of my most bitter enemy. His unnecessary now. Replied ennie slowly, still gazing at the face of Juliet, in which she, too, had read what she wished to read. The paper dropped out of her hand. They relayed stoop to pick it up. He unfolded it, smoothed it out, and then saw that it was blank. There is nothing written on this paper, he said mechanically. No, rejoined ennie. No other word saved the story of her treachery. What you have done is evil and wicked ennie. Perhaps so, but I had guessed the truth, and I wished to know. God showed me this way, how to do it, and how to let you know as well. The less you speak of God just now, ennie, the better, I think. Will you attend to my mom? She seems faint and ill. Madame day relayed, silent and placid in her armchair, had watched the tragic scene before her, almost like a disinterested spectator. All her ideas and all her thoughts had been paralyzed, since the moment when the first summons at the front door had warned her of the eminence of the peril to her son. The final discovery of Juliet's treachery had left her impassive. Since her son was endangered, she cared little as to whence that danger had come. Obedient to day relayed's wish, ennie was attending to the old lady's comforts. The poor crippled girl was already feeling the terrible reaction of her deed. In her childish mind she had planned this way, in which to bring the traitor to shame. Ennie knew nothing, cared nothing about the motives which had actuated Juliet. All she knew was that a terrible Judas-like deed had been perpetuated against the man on whom she herself had lavished her pathetic, hopeless love. All the pent-up jealousy which had tortured her for the past three weeks rose up and goaded her into unmasking her rival. Never for a moment did she doubt Juliet's guilt. The god of love may be blind, tradition has so decreed it, but the demon of jealousy has a hundred eyes, more keen than those of the lynx. Annie pushed aside by Merlin's men when they forced their way into day-related study, had, nevertheless, followed them to the door. When the curtains were drawn aside and the room filled with light, she had seen Juliet enthroned, apparently calm and placid upon the sofa. It was instinct, the instinct born of her own rejected passion, which caused her to read in the beautiful girl's face all that lay hidden behind the pale and passive mask. That same second sight made her understand Merlin's hints and allusions. She caught every inflection of his voice, heard everything, saw everything. And in the midst of her anxiety and her terrors for the man she loved there was the wild, primitive, intensely human joy at the thought of bringing that enthroned idol who had stolen his love down to earth at last. Anne-Mierre was not cleverer. She was simple and childish, with no complexity of passions or devious ways of intellect. It was her elemental jealousy which had suggested the cunning plan for the unmasking of Juliet. She would make the girl cringe in fear, threaten her with discovery, and through her very terrors shame her before Paul Day relayed. And now it was all done. It had all occurred as she had planned it. Paul knew that his love had been wasted upon a liar and a traitor. And Juliet stood pale, humiliated, a veritable wreck of shamed humanity. Anne-Mierre had triumphed and was profoundly objectively breached in her triumph. Great Sob seemed to tear at her very heartstrings. She had pulled down Paul's idol from her pedestal, but the one look she had cast at his face had shown her that she had also wrecked his life. He seemed almost old now. The earnest, restless gaze had gone from his eyes. He was staring mutely before him, twisting between nervous fingers that blank scrap of paper which had been the means of annihilating his dream. All energy of attitude, all strength of bearing which were his chief characteristics seemed to have gone. There was a look of complete blankness of hopelessness in his listless gesture. How he loved her, sighed Annier, as she tenderly wrapped the shawl round Madam Day-relayed shoulders. Juliet had said nothing. It seemed as if her very life had gone out of her. She was a mere statue now. Her mind numb, her heart dead, her very existence a fragile piece of mechanism. But she was looking at Day-relayed, that one sense in her had remained alive, her sight. She looked and looked, and saw every passing sign of mental agony in his face. The look of recognition of her guilt, the bewilderment at the appalling crash, and now that hideous death-like emptiness of his soul and mind. Never once did she detect horror or loathing. He had tried to save her from being further humiliated before his mother. But there was no hatred or contempt in his eyes when he realized that she had been unmasked by a trick. She looked and looked, for there was no hope in her, not even to spare. There was nothing in her mind, nothing in her soul, but a great paw-like blank. Then gradually, as the minute sped on, she saw the strong soul within him, make a sudden fight against the darkness of his despair. The movement of the fingers became less listless. The powerful, energetic figure straightened itself out. Remembrance of other matters, other interests, than his own, began to lift the overwhelming burden of his grief. He remembered the lettercase containing the compromising papers. A vague wonder arose in him as to Juliet's motives and warding off, through her concealment of it, the inevitable moment of its discovery by Merlene. The thought that her entire being had undergone a change and that she now wish to save him, never once entered his mind, if it had, he would have dismissed it as the outcome of Maudland's sentimentality, the conceit of the fop, who believes his personality to be irresistible. His own self-torturing humility pointed but to the one conclusion, that she had fooled him all along, fooled him when she sought his protection, fooled him when she taught him to love her, fooled him, above all, at the moment when, subjugated by the intensity of his passion, he had for one brief second ceased to worship in order to love. When the bitter remembrance of that moment of sweetest folly rushed back to his aching brain, then at last did he look up at her with one final, agonized look of reproach. So great, so tender, and yet so final, that Aimee, who saw it, felt as if her own heart would break with the pity of it all. But Juliet had caught the look too. The tension of her nerve seemed suddenly to relax. Memory rushed back upon her with tumultuous intensity. Very gradually, her knees gave way beneath her, and at last she knelt down on the floor before him. Her golden head bent under the burden of her guilt and her shame. Chapter 16 Under arrest Day relayed did not attempt to go to her. Only presently, when the heavy footsteps of Merlin and his men were once more heard upon the landing, she quietly rose to her feet. She had accomplished her act of humiliation and repentance, there before them all. She looked for the last time upon those whom she had so deeply wronged, and in her heart spoke an internal farewell to that great and mighty and holy love which she had called forth and then had so hopelessly crushed. Now she was ready for the atonement. Merlin had already swaggered into the room. The long and arduous search throughout the house had not improved either his temper or his personal appearance. He was more covered with grime than he had been before, and his narrow forehead had almost disappeared beneath the tangled mass of his ill-kempt hair, which he had perpetually tugged forward and roughed up in his angry impatience. One look at his face had already told Juliet what she wished to know. He had searched her room and found the fragments of burnt paper, which she had purposely left in the ash pan. How he would act now was the one thing of importance left for Juliet to ponder over, that she would not escape arrest and condemnation was at once made clear to her. Merlin's look of sneering contempt, when he glanced towards her, had told her that. Darrelate himself had been conscious of a feeling of intense relief when the men re-entered the room. The tension had become unendurable. When he saw his dethroned Madonna, kneeling humiliation at his feet, an overwhelming pain had wrenched his very heart strings. And yet he could not go to her. The passionate human nature within him felt a certain proud exultation at seeing her there. She was not above him now. She was no longer akin to the angels. He had given no further thought to his own immediate danger. Vaguely he guessed that Merlin would find the leather case. Where it was he could not tell. Perhaps Juliet herself had handed it to the soldiers. She had only hidden it for a few moments, out of impulse perhaps. Fearing lest, at the first instant of its discovery, Merlin might betray her. He remembered now those hints and insinuations which had gone out from the terrace to Juliet whilst the search was being conducted in the study. At the time he had merely looked upon these as a base-attempted insult and had tortured himself almost beyond bearing in the endeavor to refrain from punishing that evil-mouth creature who dared to bandy words with his Madonna. But now he understood and felt his very soul writhing with shame at the remembrance of it all. Oh, yes, the return of Merlin and his men. The presence of these grimy, degraded brutes was welcome now. He would have wished to crowd in the entire world, the universe and its population, between him and his fallen idol. Merlin's manner towards him had lost nothing of its ironical benevolence. There was even a touch of obsequiousness apparent in the ugly face, as a representative of the people approached the popular citizen deputy. Citizen deputy. Began, Merlin. I have to bring you the welcome news. We have found nothing in your house that in any way can cast suspicion upon your loyalty to the Republic. My orders, however, were to bring you before the Committee of Public Safety, whether I had found proofs of your guilt or not. I have found none. He was watching day relate keenly, hoping even at this eleventh hour to detect a look or a sign which would furnish him with the proofs for which he was seeking. The slightest suggestion of relief on day relate's part, a sigh of satisfaction would have been sufficient at this moment to convince him and the Committee of Public Safety, the citizen deputy, was guilty after all. But day relate never moved. He was sufficiently master of himself, not to express either surprise or satisfaction. Yet he felt both. Satisfaction not for his own safety, but because of his mother and Anne-Mierre, whom he would immediately send out of the country out of all danger and also because of her. Of Juliette Marnie, his guest, who, whatever she may have done against him, had still a claim on his protection. His feeling of surprise was less keen and quite transient. Merlin had not found the latter case. Juliette, stricken with tardy remorse perhaps, had succeeded in concealing it. The matter had practically ceased to interest him. It was equally galling to owe his betrayal or his ultimate safety to her. He kissed his mother tenderly, bidding her goodbye, and pressed Anne-Mierre's timid little hand warmly between his own. They sure were them, but for their own sakes he dared say nothing before Merlin, as to his plans for their safety. After that, he was ready to follow the soldiers. As he passed close to Juliette, he bowed, and almost inaudibly whispered, adieu. She heard the whisper, but did not respond. Her look alone gave him the reply to his eternal farewell. His footsteps, and those of his escort, were heard echoing down the staircase, then the hall door to open and shut. Through the open window came the sound of horse cheering as the popular citizen deputy appeared in the street. Merlin, with two men beside him, remained under the portico. He told off the other two to escort Dayrelade as far as the hall of justice, were set the members of the Committee of Public Safety. The terrorist had a vague fear that the citizen deputy would speak to the mob. An unruly crowd of women had evidently been awaiting his appearance. The news had quickly spread him along the streets that Merlin, Merlin himself, the ardent bloodthirsty Jacobin, had made a dissent upon Paul Dayrelade's house, escorted by four soldiers. Such an indignity put upon the man they most trusted in the entire Assembly of the Convention had greatly incensed the crowd. The women jeered at the soldiers as soon as they appeared and Merlin dared not actually forbid Dayrelade to speak. A la lentine, via crita, shouted one of the women, thrusting her fist under Merlin's nose. Give the wood, citizen deputy, rejoined another, and will break his ugly face. Nulica son la gal. A la lantan, a la lantan. One word from Dayrelade now would have caused an open riot, and in those days self-defense against the mob was construed into enmity against the people. Merlin's work too was not yet accomplished. He had no intention of escorting Dayrelade himself. He had still important business to transact inside the house which he had just quitted, and had merely wished to get the citizen deputy well out of the way before he went upstairs again. Moreover, he had expected something of a riot in the streets. The temper of the people of Paris was at fever heat just now. The hatred of the populace against a certain class and against certain individuals was only equaled by their enthusiasm in favor of others. They had worshiped Marat for his squalor and his vices. They worshiped Denton for his energy, and Robespierre for his calm. They worshipped Dayrelade for his voice, his gentleness and his pity, for his care of their children, and the eloquence of his speech. It was that eloquence which Merlin feared now, but he little knew the type of man he had to deal with. Dayrelade's influence over the most unruly, the most vicious populace, the history of the world has ever known, was not obtained through fanning its passions. That popularity, though brilliant, is always ephemeral. The passions of a mob will invariably turn against those who have helped arouse them. Marat did not live to see the waning of his star. Denton was dragged to the guillotine by those whom he had taught to look upon that instrument of death as the only possible and unanswerable political argument. Robespierre succumbed to the orgies of bloodshed he himself had brought about. But Dayrelade remained master of the people of Paris for as long as he chose to exert that mastery. When they listened to him they felt better, nobler, less hopelessly degraded. He kept up in their poor, misguided hearts that last flickering sense of manhood which their bloodthirsty tyrants under the guise of fraternity and equality were doing their best to smother. Even now, when he might have turned the temper of the small crowd outside his door to his own advantage, he preferred to say nothing. He even pacified them with the gesture. He well knew that those whom he incited against Merlin now would, once their blood was up, probably turned against him in less than half an hour. Merlin, who all along had meant to return to the house, took his opportunity now. He allowed Dayrelade and the two men to go on ahead and beat a hasty retreat back into the house, followed by the jeers of the women. They shouted as soon as the hall door was once more closed in their faces. A few of them began hammering against the door with their fists. Then they realized that their special favorite was marching along between two soldiers as if he were a prisoner. The word went round that he was under arrest and was being taken to the Hall of Justice, a prisoner. This was not to be. The mob of Paris had been taught that it was the master in the city, and it had learned its lesson well. For the moment it had chosen to take Paul Dayrelade under its special protection, as a guard of honor to him, the women in ragged curls, the men with bare legs and stripped to the waist, the children all yelling, hooting, and shrieking, followed him to see that none dared harm him. In chapters fifteen and sixteen. Chapter seventeen and eighteen of I Will Repay, this Lieber Vox recording is in the public domain, recording by Andy Kirkpatrick, I Will Repay by Berenice Hortsey. Chapter seventeen. Atonement. Merlene waited a while in the hall, until he heard the noise of the shrieking crowd gradually die away in the distance, then with a grunt of satisfaction he once more mounted the stairs. All these events outside had occurred during a very few minutes and Madame Deverde and Anne-Mierre had been too anxious as to what was happening in the streets to take any notice of Juliette. They had not dared to step out on the balcony to see what was going on and, therefore, did not understand what the reopening and shedding of the front door had meant. The next instant, however, Merlene's heavy slouching footsteps on the stairs had caused Anne-Mierre to look around in alarm. It is only the soldiers come back for me, said Juliette quietly. For you? Yes, they are coming to take me away. I suppose they did not wish to do it in the presence once you had ever laid for fear she had no time to say more. Anne-Mierre was still looking at her in odd and mute surprise when Merlene entered the room. In his hand he held a leather case, all torn and split at one end and a few tiny scraps of half-chart paper. He walked straight up to Juliette and roughly thrust the case and papers into her face. These are yours, he said roughly. Yes. I suppose you know where they were found. She nodded quietly in reply. What were these papers which you burnt? Love letters? You lie. She shrugged her shoulders. As you please, she said curtly. What were these papers? He repeated, with a loud obscene oath which, however, had not the power to disturb the young girl's serenity. I have told you, she said. Love letters, which I wish to burn. Who was your lover? He asked. Then, as she did not reply, he indicated the street where cries of Day-Relayed, Vive Day-Relayed, still echoed from afar. Were the letters from him? No. You had more than one lover then. He laughed, and a hideous leer seemed further to distort his ugly countenance. He thrust his face quite close to hers, and she closed her eyes, sick with the horror of this contact with the grated wretch. Even Ann Mier had uttered a cry of sympathy at sight of this evil-smelling, squalid creature torturing, with his close proximity, the beautiful, refined girl before him. With a rough gesture, he put his claw-like hand under her delicate chin, forcing her to turn round and to look at him. She shuddered at the loathsome touch, but her quietude never forsook her for a moment. It was into the power of wretches such as this man, as she had willfully delivered the man she loved. This brutish creature's familiarity put the finishing touch to her own degradation, but it gave her the courage to carry through her purpose to the end. You had more than one lover then, said Merlin, with a laugh which would have pleased the devil himself, and you wished to send one of them to the guillotine in order to make way for the other. Was that it? Was that it? He repeated, suddenly seizing one of her wrists, and giving it a savage twist, so that she almost screamed with the pain. Yes, she replied firmly. Do you know that you brought me here on a fool's errand? He asked viciously, that the citizen deputy Deirele could not be sent to the guillotine on mere suspicion, eh? Did you know that when you rolled out that denunciation? No, I did not know. You thought we could arrest him on mere suspicion? Yes. You knew he was innocent. I knew it. Why did you burn your love-letters? I was afraid that they would be found and would be brought under the notice of the citizen deputy. A splendid combination, m'fois, said Merlin, with an oaf, as he turned to the other two women, who set pale and shrinking in a corner of the room, not understanding what was going on, not knowing what to think or what to believe. They had known nothing of Deirele's plans for the escape of Marie Antoinette. They did not know what the letter case had contained, and yet they both vaguely felt that the beautiful girl, who stood up so calmly before the loathsome terrorist, was not a wanton, as she tried to make out, but only misguided, mad perhaps, perhaps a martyr. Did you know anything of this? Couriered Merlin roughly from trembling enmie. Nothing, she replied. No one knew anything of my private affairs or of my private correspondence, said Juliette Coley. As you say, it was a splendid combination. I had hoped that it would succeed, but I understand now that citizen deputy Deirele is a personage of too much importance to be brought to trial on mere suspicion, and my denunciation of him was not based on facts. And do you know my fine aristocrat, sneered Merlin viciously, that it is not wise either to fool the committee of public safety or to denounce without cause one of the representatives of the people? I know, she rejoined quietly, that you, citizen Merlin, are determined that someone shall pay for this day's blunder. You dare not now attack the citizen deputy, and so you must be content with me. Enough of this talk. Now I have no time to bandy words with the Ristos, he said roughly. Come now, follow them in quietly. Resistence would only aggravate your case. I am quite prepared to follow you. May I speak two words to my friends before I go? No. I may never be able to speak to them again. I have said no, and I mean no. Now then forward. March! I have wasted too much time already. Juliette was too proud to insist any further. She had hoped by one word to soften Madame Deserlades and Anne-Mierre's heart towards her. She did not know whether they believed that miserable lie which she had been telling to Merlin. She only guessed that for the moment they still thought her were the betrayer of Paul Deserlades. But that one word was not to be spoken. She would have to go forth to her certain trial, to her probable death, under the awful cloud which she herself had brought over her own life. She turned quietly and walked towards the door, where the two men already stood at attention. Then it was that some heaven-born instinct seemed suddenly to guide Anne-Mierre. The crippled girl was face-to-face with a psychological problem which in itself was far beyond her comprehension, but vaguely she felt that it was a problem. Something in Juliette's face had already caused her to bitterly repent her action towards her. And now, as this beautiful refined woman was about to pass from under the shelter of this roof, to the cruel publicity and terrible torture of that awful revolutionary tribunal, Anne-Mierre's whole heart went out to her in boundless sympathy. Before Merlin or the men could prevent her, she had run up to Juliette, taken her hand which hung listless and cold, and kissed it tenderly. Juliette seemed to wake as if from a dream. She looked down at Anne-Mierre with a glance of hope, almost of joy, and whispered, It was an oath I swore to my father and my dead brother. Tell him. Anne-Mierre could only nod. She could not speak for her tears were choking her. But I'll atone with my life. Tell him, whispered Juliette. Now then, shouted Merlin, out of the way hunch back unless you want to come along too. Forgive me, said Anne-Mierre through her tears. Then the men pushed her roughly aside. But at the door, Juliette turned to her once more and said, Haternell, take care of her. And with a firm step she followed the soldiers out of the room. Presently the front door was heard to open, then just shut with a loud bang, and the house in the rue École de Médicine was left in silence. Chapter 18 in the Luxembourg prison Juliette was alone at last, that is to say, comparatively alone, for there were too many aristocrats, too many criminals and traitors in the prisons of Paris now to allow of any seclusion of those who were about to be tried, condemned, and guillotined. The young girl had been marched through the crowded streets of Paris, followed by a jeering mob who readily recognized in the gentle, hybrid girl the obvious prey which the Committee of Public Safety was want from time to time to throw to the hungry, hydro-headed dog of the revolution. Lately the squalid spectators of the noisome spectacle on the plosé de la guillotine had had few of these very welcome sites. An aristocrat, a real, elegant, refined woman with white hands and proud pale face, mounting the steps of the same scaffold on which perished the valous criminals and the most degraded brutes. Madame Guillotine was, above all, Catholic in her tastes. Her gaunt arms painted blood red, were open alike to the murderer and the thief, the aristocrats of ancient lineage and the proletariat from the gutter. But lately the executions had been almost exclusively of a political character. The Guirondines were fighting their last upon the bloody arena of the revolution. One by one they fell still fighting, still preaching moderation, still foretelling disaster and appealing to that people, whom they had roused from one slavery, in order to throw it headlong under a tyrannical yoke more brutish or absolute than before. There were twelve prisons in Paris then and forty thousand in France and they were all full. An entire army went round the country recruiting prisoners. There was no room for separate sales, no room for privacy, no cause or desire for the most elementary sense of delicacy. Women, men, children, all were herded together for one day, perhaps two, and a night or so, and then death would obliterate the petty annoyances the womanly blushes caused by this sordid propinquity. Death leveled all, erased everything. When Marie Antoinette mounted the guillotine, she had forgotten that for six weeks she practically lived day and night in the immediate companionship of a set of degraded soldiery. Juliet, as she marched through the streets between two men of the National Guard and followed by Marlene, was hooted and jeered at, insulted, pelted with mud. One woman tried to push past the soldiers and to strike her in the face, a woman, not thirty, and who was dragging a pale, squalid little boy by the hand. Crash dans sur le risque voyant, the woman said to this poor, miserable little scrap of humanity as the soldiers pushed her roughly aside, spit on their aristocrat, and the child tortured its own small, parched mouth, so that, in obedience to its mother, it might defile and bespatter a beautiful, innocent girl. The soldiers laughed and improved the occasion with another insulting just. Even Marlene forgot his vexation, delighted at the incident. But Juliet had seen nothing of it all. She was walking as in a dream. The mob did not exist for her. She heard neither insult nor vituperation. She did not see the evil, dirty faces pushed now and then quite close to her. She did not feel the rough hands of the soldiers jostling her through the crowd. She had gone back to her own world of romance, where she dwelt alone now with the man she loved. Instead of the squalid houses of Paris, with their eternal device of fraternity and equality, there were beautiful trees and shrubs of laurel, and of roses around her, making the air fragrant with their soft, intoxicating perfumes. Sweet voices from the land of dreams filled the atmosphere with their tender murmur, whilst overhead a cloudless sky illumined this earthly paradise. She was happy, supremely, completely happy. She had saved him from the consequences of her own iniquitous crime, and she was about to give her life for him, so that his safety might be more completely assured. Her love for him he would never know. Now he knew only her crime, but presently, when she would be convicted and condemned, confronted with the few scraps of burned paper in a torn letter case, then he would know that she had stood her trial, self-accused, and meant to die for him. Therefore the past few moments were now holy hers. She had the rights to dwell upon those few happy seconds when she'd listened to the avowal of his love. It was ethereal, and perhaps not altogether human, but it was hers. She had been his divinity, his Madonna, he had loved in her that, which was her truer, her better self. What was base in her was not truly her. That awful oath, sworn so solemnly, had been her relentless tyrant, and her religion, a religion of superstition and of false ideals, had blinded her, and dragged her into crime. She had irrigated to herself that which was God's alone, vengeance, which is not for man. That through it all she should have known love, and learned its tender secrets, was more than she deserved, that she should have felt his burning kisses on her hand was heavenly compensation for all she would have to suffer, and so she allowed them to drag her through the sans-colon mob of Paris who would have torn her to pieces then and there, so as not to delay the pressure of seeing her die. They took her to the Luxembourg, once the palace of the Medici, the home of the proud Montia in the days of the great monarch, now a loathsome, overfilled prison. It was then six o'clock in the afternoon, drawing towards the close of this memorable day. She was handed over to the governor of the prison, a short, thick-set man in black trousers in black shag woolen shirt, and wearing a dirty red crap with tricolor rosette on the side of his unkempt head. He eyed her up and down as she passed under the narrow doorway, then murmured once with query to Merlion. Dangerous? Yes, replied Merlion leconically. You understand, added the governor. We are so crowded, we ought to know if individual attention is required. Certainly, said Merlion, you will be personally responsible for this prisoner to the Committee of Public Safety. Any visitors allowed? Certainly not, without the special permission of the public prosecutor. Julia had heard this brief exchange of words over her future fate. No visitor would be allowed to see her. Well, perhaps that would be best. She would have been afraid to meet day-relate again, afraid to read in his eyes that story of his dead love, which alone might have destroyed her present happiness. And she wished to see no one. She had a memory to dwell on, a short, heavenly memory. It consisted of a few words, a kiss, the last one, on her hand, and that passionate murmur which had escaped from his lips when he knelt at her feet. Juliet In chapters 17 and 18