Part 50 (1/2)
One packet remained, which he had intentionally not destroyed. When the fire settled down a little he took a strong paper and cord, wrapped and sealed it, and addressed it for mailing as follows--
+--------------------------------------------+
RECORD OF PROOFS AGAINST G. LECOUR,
THE PROPERTY OF MONSIEUR LOUIS R. C.
DE LeRY,
_Late Bodyguard of the King of France_,
AT QUEBEC
IN CANADA.
+--------------------------------------------+
Humbly he descended the stair once more, and placing the package on the table of the sitting-room, sank again feverishly into his chair, prepared to confess all should Cyrene safely return.
A knocking sounded in the lower part of the house. He went to the door; the wicket showed a beggar woman, but on Mademoiselle Richeval mentioning her name he recognised her and let her in. His mind was so absorbed that he felt no surprise. As food was what she wanted he set before her everything in their little larder; and while she was eating like one famished he forgot her presence completely. The two once so sociable persons were for a while dumb to each other.
At length, however, having satisfied her ravenous hunger, she commenced to speak of the changes which the Revolution had brought to them and to wonder at his strange want of interest, when the noise of a mob crowding around the door was heard.
Lecour saw what might happen.
”Fly, Mademoiselle,” he said; ”in the courtyard there is a door on the left, take it and pa.s.s into the next house where are good people who will not abandon you. I must stay here.”
He then went to the door at which pikes and gun-stocks were beating.
”Citizens, I am the only person in the house,” said he, at an opening they had broken in one of the panels. ”What do you wish?”
For answer several pikes were thrown in; he stepped back beyond their reach, calmly fronting the fierce faces.
”Tell me what you want. I am ready to do your will.”
There was a short period of indecision outside. A muscular man in a carmagnole swinging a formidable axe pushed forward and the others fell back at his rough order.
”I arrest you, citizen Repentigny,” said Hache, for it was he. ”We mates of Bec and Caron that you quartered have had it in for you for a long time. I am a commissioner now, and they call this my domiciliary visit.
If you will come, I will see, on the faith of a brigand, that you get to prison safely; if not, I will see that you don't. Do you come?”
Germain calculated the seconds he had been able to save for Mademoiselle Richeval. They were ample.
He opened the door and gave himself up.
CHAPTER LI
LOVE ENDURETH ALL THINGS
Cyrene, when she found herself in darkness, had a confused idea that she was waking from a dream and lying in her bed at the house in the Rue Honore. Under that impression she drew a breath of relief. A curse from a woman's voice somewhere near by made her realise the truth; the cry of Dominique, ”They have finished me!” and the circ.u.mstances of his disappearance from her side returned vividly, and her heart sickened.
But misery is like a thermometer; after reaching a particular degree it can fall but slightly lower. The death of Dominique only benumbed her brain. Her next impression was that this place in which she lay must be a dungeon, and as her eyes could make out nothing whatever in the darkness she concluded that the woman she heard must be a prisoner in an adjoining cell.
In a short time a stealthy step approached. It stopped, a wooden door swung back, and a band of greyish light showed a low room of rough beams without a window. At the door Wife Gougeon peered in, and behind her was the cheerless perspective of the shop, additionally cheerless in the grey of early morning.
”Well, wench, how do you like being a _Sans-culotte_? You slept too soft in the Old _Regime_.”
Cyrene had not noticed how she had been sleeping; she now saw that her bed was a pile of straw on a box.