Part 7 (1/2)

The little homekeeper put a warning finger to mouth. Running past him to the door, she slipped out and closed it. She withdrew to the back of the hall, and came forward nonchalantly as the a.s.sa.s.sins reached the hallway.

Rapier at her throat, the leader put the silent but terrible question.

Henriette's heart jumped. She managed not to show her terror.

”I saw a man going up those stairs three steps at a time!” she lied superbly, pointing to the floor above.

The company ran up the third-floor stairs on the double jump. As they vanished, she was inside her rooms again and with the quarry.

Minutes pa.s.sed. The spada.s.sins searched the top garrets. They sought the roof, saw escape was impossible that way. Then they clattered down the stairs. The leader hesitated at Henriette's door.

”Faugh!” he said. ”The girl is just a simpleton, she couldn't have tricked us!”

At his command the men marched down--to encounter unexpectedly a company of national gendarmes that had been hurriedly summoned to the scene of the disturbance.

In the porch melee Danton's side had been painfully slashed. Despite the pain, he recognized his little preserver and thanked her. Still holding his hand to his side and half-reeling, he moved to go. Now that all seemed quiet, he proposed to rid her of the compromising presence of a man in her room.

Henriette seized him with her little arms.

”No, no, you can't go!” she said with a little smile of divine pity.

”Better a little gossip about me than that you should lose your life.”

Henriette locked the door!

She strove to carry the disabled giant to the nearest chair. Leaning heavily on her, he walked with an effort and plumped down on it. One of his arms was around her. She tried to free it, but it clung. With hands and knees she crawled out backward from the unconscious embrace.

It was the work of but a few minutes to wash and bind his wound. Next she spread a pallet on the floor, a.s.sisted him to it, wrapped him warmly, and with a kind ”Good night!” left him to go to her little boudoir....

That same night the spada.s.sins were met and disarmed by the gendarmes who (largely owing to Danton's eloquence) espoused the people's side.

And that is why Monsieur Robespierre, his confrere, was abroad very early, without fear of a.s.sa.s.sins, and nosing for news.

”I hear Danton was in a little trouble last night!” gossiped the slick citizen with his landlady. ”The fight was in this very house, was it not?”

The landlady, it seemed, was ignorant of Danton's refuge. But Robespierre suspected. He decided to investigate, being a stickler for propriety. Mounting the stairs stealthily, he knocked at Henriette's door.

The girl and the man were at their leave-taking. Few words were spoken. The giant clasped both her little hands in his great paws.

”What you have done for me I shall never forget!” he was saying.

”Oh, if I had a great kind brother like this!” was her sudden thought.

”Whisht!” she whispered vocally as the knock was heard. Again the little gesture of warning finger to mouth.

She stole to the keyhole and thought she recognized the habiliments of her neighbor the dandy. Motioning Danton back out of sight she opened the door on the crack, closed it as she slipped through, and encountered the bowing and smirking Robespierre.

”A man escaped from the spada.s.sins here last night-did he find refuge with you?”

”You are mistaken, Monsieur. I am quite alone.”