Part 11 (2/2)

”Oh, they inhabit an old boathouse at the end of the Rue de Brissac down on the banks of the river Seine. There's a cellar entrance to their hovel near the Paris-Normandy coach house. But what would you do?” he inquired solicitously.

”Oh, Sir,” said Henriette piteously, ”if you could use your influence to get me out of here some way, I would--would run there and recover my little lost sister! You don't know how I love her, nor my fears that they will kill her. Please, please--” The little voice broke off in sobs.

Patting the girl's shoulder and smiling at her as if to try to impart confidence in a very difficult matter, the good Doctor drew apart with Sister Genevieve and conferred earnestly for a few moments. On their return, the physician spoke again:

”'Twould be of no use to invoke the police, as the Count has probably instructed them not to hunt for Louise. Nor is it in our power to release you from here. But we shall get up a pet.i.tion signed by all of us for your reprieve, very likely Count de Linieres will not venture to refuse it--”

Henriette was overjoyed even with this slender resource, and warmly thanked them. At once her busy little brain laid plans for invading the lair of the Frochards. And then--a most unexpected ray in the darkness--arrived at Salpetriere the quaint valet Picard and brought her comfort too.

No longer a spy for the Count, he had been converted from base suspicion by the Chevalier's honorable suit and the exile the latter had suffered. He now delivered this little message from his master at Caen:

Dearest, never will I marry anyone but you, my heart's desire!

Should I escape, it will be to your arms. Picard knows my secret plan and will tell you--until then, courage! A thousand kisses from your Maurice.

Henriette kissed the little paper fervently.

Countess de Linieres decided to make a clean breast of her wretched past to her husband. ”It was not that I--I sinned,” she sobbed, kneeling at his feet, ”In the sight of G.o.d I am innocent, though erring!

”In early girlhood,” she continued, ”I loved and was loved by a Commoner, a man of the people. The good Cure married us secretly. We were blessed by an infant daughter.

”The family pride of the de Vaudreys was outraged by the so-called dishonor. Two of the clan found our hiding-place and slew my husband, then took my baby Louise from my helpless arms. I was brought back to the chateau and given in marriage to you, after threats of death if I should ever divulge the secret! Twenty years after, I saw my daughter as Louise the blind singer--the girl Henriette, whom you sent to Salpetriere, is her foster-sister. Oh, forgive, forgive--put me away if you wish, but consider what I have suffered!...”

The strong man, whom neither the fate of Maurice nor of Henriette had melted, was crying. Gently he lifted up the Countess and clasped her sobbing in his arms.

”If you had only told me before--” was the only word to which he could give utterance.

The h.e.l.lish aspect of his persecutions now stood revealed. Count de Linieres, in the act of divine forgiveness, resolved to undo wrongs.

But History struck faster.

The avenger Jacques-Forget-Not annihilated pardons. The Linieres and the other aristocrats were soon to flee for their lives.

CHAPTER XVI

REVOLUTION IS HERE!

The ex-retainer nicknamed ”Forget-Not” bore a baleful grudge because of the cruelties inflicted on his own father many years before by the Countess's father--the cruel punishment of pouring boiling lead into the unfortunate tenant's veins: a procedure on which the boy Chevalier had been taught to look approvingly.

In fact ever since the elder Jean Setain displeased the then Seigneur of the de Vaudrey estate, the affairs of the tenant family had gone to wrack and ruin until the middle-aged son was little more than a landless beggar and an embodied voice calling for vengeance.

The original parties of the quarrel were dead. But the feud (on the part of Jacques-Forget-Not) had taken on a more personal aspect, because his own sufferings were involved as well as the memory of his father's. He had determined to kill the Chevalier, the Countess and the Count.

In normal times the monomaniac's designs would never have reached fruition. Now the vast public discontents converted the cringing ex-tenant or shrieking beggar into a gaunt, long-haired, ferocious agitator--one of the outstanding crazy figures of Great Crises!

<script>