Part 41 (2/2)

”Only that the man who brought her last night would come and explain.”

”I will go to her.”

But Latour did not go immediately. He must have a few moments for thought, and he paced his room excitedly, pausing more than once to look at himself in a little mirror which hung upon the wall. His followers would hardly have recognized in him the calm, calculating man with whom they were accustomed to deal. It was with a great effort that he steadied his nerves and went quietly up the stairs.

Jeanne rose from her chair as he entered, but Latour could not know how her heart beat as the door opened. She looked at him steadily, inquiringly, waiting for him to speak.

”Mademoiselle has slept, I trust?”

It seemed to Latour that he looked at her for a long time without speaking, such a whirl of thoughts swept through his brain as he entered the room and saw the woman standing there. He remembered the other woman who had occupied this apartment until he had let her go two or three days since. He had hated her for being there. This room had not been fas.h.i.+oned with such infinite care for such a woman as Pauline Vaison, but for this very woman who now stood before him. How strangely natural it seemed that she should be there! This was the moment which had been constantly in his dreams waking and sleeping.

”I do not know you,” she said. ”Why am I here? Indeed, where am I?”

”Mademoiselle, I have come to explain. It is a long explanation, and you must bear with me a little.”

”Tell me first, where is Monsieur Barrington?” said Jeanne.

”In safety. You have my word for it.”

”Whose word?”

”You shall have the whole story, mademoiselle, and you shall presently see Monsieur Barrington.”

Jeanne sat down, and Raymond Latour moved to the window and stood there.

”I must begin in the middle of my story,” he said, ”it is easier for me, and you will understand better. On the day of your arrival in Paris, I met Monsieur Barrington. He was watching a coach which contained a prisoner who was being escorted by a crowd of patriots to the Abbaye prison. The sight was new to him; I believe that, single-handed, he would have made an attempt at a rescue, had I not touched his arm. I knew who he was, and that he had helped you into Paris. A little later it was said that you had been arrested in the house of Lucien Bruslart, and Monsieur Barrington came to me. We both concluded that you were the prisoner in that coach. I believed Barrington to be an honest man, and I rescued the prisoner from the Abbaye, and brought her here, only to find that she was one Pauline Vaison, a woman Bruslart was to marry.

Bruslart, however, had made no effort to save her. He had apparently sacrificed her to help you, and Barrington had helped him.”

”It might appear so, monsieur, but such was not the case,” said Jeanne.

”My opinion of Monsieur Barrington is at present in the balance,” said Latour; ”Lucien Bruslart I know to be a scoundrel. The release of Pauline Vaison naturally frightened Bruslart, who has gone into hiding and is not to be found. Barrington is not a coward, and it was easy to secure him. I saved him from the mob, but I kept him a prisoner. I challenged him with his treachery to me, and he denied it, yet immediately I let him go and had him watched, he straightway found you at the house of Dr. Legrand in the Rue Charonne. Watching him and his servant it was discovered that you were to be rescued from Legrand's house, with the result that you are here.”

”In the hands of Monsieur Raymond Latour,” said Jeanne, quietly.

”Yes, mademoiselle, though I am surprised that you know me. Monsieur Barrington is also in my hands.”

”Most of this story I already know from Monsieur Barrington,” she returned. ”If you will believe my word, I can show you that he was not in Lucien Bruslart's confidence at all, that Lucien Bruslart from the first deceived him. If you know anything of me, you must realize that it is not easy to speak of Monsieur Bruslart in this way.”

”I know all about you, mademoiselle,” Latour answered slowly.

”And hate me. I have heard of Raymond Latour as a hater of aristocrats.

I cannot understand, therefore, why you undertook my rescue from prison.”

”Because you do not know all about me,” he said ”It is true I am a republican, a hater of aristocrats. Mademoiselle, you have been good to the poor in Paris, you are one of the few who have cared anything for them. Had you not fled, had you not become an emigre, I believe you could have walked the streets of the city in perfect safety. If for a moment you will put aside your cla.s.s prejudice, you must know that the people have the right with them. They have been ground down, trampled on for generations, now they have struggled to freedom. If they push that freedom to excess, can you honestly be astonished? They are but retaliating for the load of cruelty which has been pressed upon them.”

”Monsieur, I am no politician. Many dear friends of mine have been foully murdered. I look for no better fate for myself.”

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