CHAPTER XVI

AN UNWELCOME VISITOR

Mlle de Rochambeau shared a small, unwholesome cell with three other women. One of them, Mme de Coigny, a young widow, had lately given birth to a child, a poor, fretful little creature whose wailings added to the general discomfort.

Mme Renard, the linen draper's wife, tossed her head, and complained volubly to whoever would listen, that she got no sleep at nights, since the brat came. She had been a great man's mistress, and was under arrest because he had emigrated. Terrified to death, she bewailed her lot continually, was sometimes fawning, sometimes insolent to her aristocratic companions, and always very disdainful of the fourth inmate, a stout Breton peasant, with a wooden manner which concealed an enormous respect for the company in which she found herself. She told her rosary incessantly, when not occupied with the baby, who was less ill at ease in her accustomed arms than with its frail, young mother.

One night Mademoiselle awoke with a start. She thought she was being called, and listened intently. A little light came through the grated window--moonlight, but sallow, and impure, as if the rays were infected by the heaviness of the atmosphere. It served, however, to show the heavy immobility of Marie Kerac's form as she lay, emitting unmistakable snores, the baby caught in her left arm and sleeping too. A dingy beam fell right across Mme Renard's face. It had been pretty enough, in a round dimpled way, but now it looked heavy and leaden, showing lines of fretful fear, even in sleep.

Out of the darkness in the corner there came a long-drawn sigh, and then a very low voice just breathed the words, "Mademoiselle de Rochambeau, are you awake?" Aline sat up.

"Is it you, Madame de Coigny?" she asked, a little startled, for both sigh and voice had a vague unearthliness that seemed to make the night darker. The Bretonne's honest breathing was a reassuring sound.

"Yes!" said the low voice.

"Are you ill--can I do anything for you?"

There was a rustling movement and a dim shape emerged from the shadow.

"If I might lie down beside you for a while. The little one went so peacefully to sleep with that good soul, that I had not the heart to take her back, and it is lonely--mon Dieu, it is lonely!"

Aline made room on the straw pallet, and put an arm round the cold, shrinking figure.

"Why, you are chilled," she said gently, "and the night is quite warm."

"To-morrow I shall be colder," said Mme de Coigny in a strange whisper.

"My dear, what do you mean?"

Something like a shiver made the straw rustle.

"I am not afraid. It is only that I cannot get warm"; then turning her face to Aline she whispered, "they will come for me to-morrow."

"No, no; why should you think so? How can you know?"

"Ah, I know--I know quite well--and I am glad, really. I should have been glad to die before the little one came, for then she would have been safe too. Now she has this business of life before her, and, see you, I find life too sad, at all events for us women."

"Life is not always sad," said Aline soothingly.

"Mine has been sad," said Mme de Coigny. "May I talk to you a little? We are of the same age, and to-night--to-night I feel so strange, as if I were quite alone in some great empty place."

"Yes, talk to me, and I will put my arms round you. There! Now you will be warmer."

Another shiver shook the bed, and then the low voice began again.

"I wanted to be a nun, you know. When I was a child they called me the little nun, and always I said I would be one. Then when I was eighteen, my elder sister died, and I was an heiress, and they married me to M. de Coigny."

"Did you not want to marry him?"

"Nobody thought of asking me, and, mon Dieu, how I cried, and wept, and tortured myself. I thought I was a martyr, no less, and prayed that I might die. It was terrible! By the time the wedding-day came, M. de Coigny must have wondered at his bride, for my face was swollen with weeping, and my eyes red and sore," and she gave a little ghost of a laugh.

"Was he kind to you?"

"Yes, he was kind"--there was a queer inflection in the low tone--"and almost at once he was called away for six months, and I went back to my prayers, and tried to fancy myself a nun again. Then he came back, and all at once, I don't know how, something seemed to break in my heart, and I loved him. Mon Dieu, how I loved him! And he loved me,--that was what was so wonderful."

"Then you were happy?"

"For a month--one little month--only one little month--" she broke off on a sob, and clung to Aline in the dark. "They arrested us, took us to prison, and when I would have gone to the scaffold with him, they tore me away, yes, though I went on my knees and prayed to them. 'The Republic does not kill her unborn citizens,' they said; and they sent me here to wait."

"You will live for the poor little baby," whispered Aline, her eyes full of tears, but Mme de Coigny shook her head.

"No," she said quietly; "it is over now. To-morrow they will take me away."

She lay a little longer, but did not talk much, and after a while she slipped away to her own mattress, and Aline, listening, could hear that she slept.

In the morning she made no reference to what had passed, but when Aline left the cell to go to Mme de Matigny's room she thought as she passed out that she heard a whispered "Adieu," though on looking round she saw that Mme de Coigny's face was bent over the child, whom she was rocking on her knee.

She went on her way, walking fast, and lifting her skirts carefully, for the passages of the Abbaye were places of indescribable noisomeness. About half-way down, the open door of an empty cell let a little light in upon the filth and confusion, and showed the bestial, empurpled face of a drunken turnkey, who lay all along a bench, sleeping off the previous night's excesses. As Aline hastened, she saw a man come down the corridor, holding feebly to the wall. Opposite the empty cell he paused, catching at the jamb with shaking fingers, and lifting a face which Mademoiselle de Rochambeau recognised with a little cry of shocked surprise.

"M. Clery!" she exclaimed.

Edmond Clery could hardly stand, but he forced a pitiful parody of his old, gay laugh and bow.

"Myself," he said, "or at least as much of me as the ague has left."

Just inside the cell was a rough stool, and Aline drew it quickly forward. He sank down gratefully, leaning against the door-post, and closing his eyes for a moment.

"Oh," said Mademoiselle, "how ill you look; you are not fit to walk alone."

He gave her a whimsical glance.

"So it appears," he murmured, "since De Maurepas, you, and my own legs are all of the same story. Well, he will be after me in a few moments, that good Maurepas, and then I shall get to my room again."

"I think I know M. de Maurepas a little," said Aline; "he is very religious."

Clery gave a faint laugh.

"Yes, we are strange room-mates, he and I. He prays all the time and I not at all, since I never could imagine that le bon Dieu could possibly be interested in my banal conversation; but he is a good comrade, that Maurepas, in spite of his prayers."

"But, Monsieur, how come you to be so ill? If you knew how I have reproached myself, and now to see you like this--oh, you cannot tell how I feel."

Clery found the pity in her eyes very agreeable.

"And why reproach yourself, Citoyenne; it is not your fault that my cell is damp."

"No, no, but your arrest; to think that I should have brought that upon you. Had I known, I would have done anything rather than ask your help."

"Ah, then you would have deprived me of a pleasure. Indeed, Citoyenne, my arrest need not trouble you; it was due, not to your affairs, but my own."

"Ah, M. Clery, is that true?" and her voice spoke her relief.

"I should be able to think better of myself if it were not," said Clery a little bitterly. "I was a fool, and I am being punished for my folly. Dangeau warned me too. When you see him again, Citoyenne, you may tell him that he was right about Therese."

"Therese--Therese Marcel?" asked Aline, shrinking a little.

"Ah--you know her! Well, I trusted her, and she betrayed me, and here I am. Dangeau always said that she was dangerous--the devil's imitation of a woman, he called her once, and you can tell him that he was quite right."

Aline averted her eyes, and her colour rose a shade. For a moment her heart felt warm. Then she looked back at Clery, and fell quickly upon her knees beside him, for he was gasping for breath, and falling sideways from the stool. She managed to support him for the moment, but her heart beat violently, and at the sound of footsteps she called out. To her relief, M. de Maurepas came up quickly. If he felt any surprise at finding her in such a situation, he was too well-bred to show it.

"Do not be alarmed," he said hastily. "He has been very ill, but this is only a swoon; he should not have walked." Then, "Mademoiselle, move your arm, and let me put mine around him, so--now I can manage."

He lifted Clery as he spoke, and carried him the length of the corridor.

"Now, if Mademoiselle will have the goodness to push the door a little wider," and he passed in and laid Clery gently down.

Mademoiselle hesitated by the door for a minute.

"He looks so ill, will he die?" she said.

"Not of this," returned M. de Maurepas; then, after a moment's pause, and with a grave smile, "Nor at all till it is God's will, Mademoiselle."

Mlle de Rochambeau spent the morning with Marguerite. On her return to her own cell she found an empty place. Mme de Coigny was gone, and the little infant wailed on the peasant woman's lap.

Clery was better next day. On the third Aline met M. de Maurepas in the corridor. He was accompanied by a rough-looking turnkey, and she was about to pass without speaking, but their eyes met, and on the impulse she stopped and asked:

"How is M. Clery to-day?"

The young soldier looked at her steadily.

"He has--he has moved on, Mademoiselle," he returned, something of distress in his tone.

The turnkey burst into a loud, brutal laugh.

"Eh, that was the citizen with the ague? At the last he shook and shook so much that he shook his head off--yes--right out of the little window, where his friend is now going to look for it," and he clapped De Maurepas on the shoulder with a dingy, jocular hand.

Aline drew a sharp breath.

"Oh, no," she said involuntarily, but De Maurepas bent his head in grave assent.

"Is this so pleasant a camp that you grudge me my marching orders?" he asked; and as they passed he looked back a moment and said, "Adieu, Mademoiselle."

She gave him back the word very low, and he smiled again, a smile that irradiated his rough features and steady brown eyes. "Indeed, I think I go to 'Him,'" he said, and was gone.

Aline steadied herself against the wall, and closed her eyes for a moment. She had conceived a sincere liking for the young soldier; Clery had done her a service, and now both were gone, and she still left. And yet she knew that Hebert was loose again. When she had first heard of his release she spent days of shuddering apprehension, but as the time went on she began to entertain a trembling hope that she was forgotten, as happened to more than one prisoner in those days.

Hebert was loose again, but, for a time at least, with hands too full of public matters, and brain too occupied with the struggle for existence, to concern himself with matters of private pleasure or revenge.

It was the middle of June before he thought seriously of Mlle de Rochambeau.

"Dangeau is returning," said Danton one morning, and Hebert's dormant spite woke again into full activity.

At the Abbaye, the hot afternoon waned; a drowsy stillness fell upon its inmates. Mme de Matigny dozed a little. She had grown older in the past few weeks, but her glance was still piercing, and she woke at intervals with a start, and let it rest sharply upon her little circle, as if forbidding them to be aware of Juno nodding.

Marguerite and Aline sat together: Aline half asleep with her head in her friend's lap, for Mme de Coigny's baby had died at dawn, and she had been up all night tending it, and now fatigue had its way with her.

Suddenly a turnkey stumbled in. He had been drinking, and stood blinking a moment as, coming from the dark corridor, he met the level sunlight full. Then he called Mlle de Rochambeau's name, and as she awoke with a sense of startled amazement Marguerite flung soft arms about her.

"Ah, ma mie, ma belle, ma bien aimee!" she cried, sobbing.

"Chut!" said the man, with a leer. "She 'd rather hear that from some one else, I take it, my little Citoyenne. If I 'm not mistaken there 's some one ready enough. There 's no need to cry this time, since it is only to see a visitor that I want the Citoyenne. There 's a Citizen Deputy below with an order to see her, so less noise, please, and march."

The blood ran back to Aline's cheek. Only two days back the Abbe had mentioned Dangeau's name, and had said he was returning. If it should be he? The thought flashed, and was checked even as it flashed, but she followed the man with a step that was buoyant in spite of her fatigue. Then in the gaoler's room--Hebert!

Just a moment's pause, and she came forward with a composure that hid God knows what of shrinking, maidenly disgust.

Hebert was not attractive to look at. His garments were dusty and wine-stained, his creased, yellow linen revealing a frowsy and unshaven chin, where the reddish hair showed unpleasantly upon the fat, unwholesome flesh. He laughed, disclosing broken teeth.

"It was not I whom you expected, hein Citoyenne," he said, with diabolical intuition. "He gets tired easily, you see, our good Jacques Dangeau, and lips that have been kissed too often don't tempt him any more."

His leer pointed the insult, and an intolerable burning invaded every limb, but she steadied herself against the wall, and leaned there, her head still up, facing him.

"Did you think I had forgotten you too?" he pursued, smiling odiously. "Ah! I see you did me that injustice, but you do not know me, ma belle. Mine is such a faithful heart. It never forgets, never; and it always gets what it wants in the end. I have been in prison too, as you may have heard--yes, you did? And grieved for me, pretty one, that I am sure of. A few rascals crossed my path and annoyed me for the moment. Where are they now? Trembling under arrest. Had they not detained me, I should have flown to you long ago; but I trust that now you acquit me of the discourtesy of keeping a lady waiting. I am really the soul of politeness."

There was a pause. Mademoiselle held to the wall, and kept her eyes away from his face.

"Your affair comes on to-morrow," he said, with a brisk change of tone.

For the moment she really felt a sense of thankfulness. So she was delivered from the unbearable affront of this man's presence what did death matter?

Hebert guessed her thoughts.

"Rather death than me, hein?" he said, leaning closer. "Is that what you are thinking, Ma'mselle White-face?"

Her eyes spoke for her.

"I can save you yet," he cried, angered by her silence. "A word from me and your patriotism is above reproach. Come, you 've made a good fight, and I won't say that has n't made me like you all the better. I always admire spirit; but now it's time the play was over. Down with the curtain, and let's kiss and make friends behind it."

Mademoiselle stood silent, a helpless thing at bay.

"You won't, eh?" and his tone changed suddenly. "Very well, my pretty piece of innocence; it's Fouquier Tinville to-morrow, and then the guillotine,--but"--his voice sank savagely--"my turn first."

She quivered in a sick horror. "What did he mean; what could he do? Oh, Mary Virgin!"

His face came very close with its pale, hideous smile.

"Come to me willingly, and I 'll save your life and set you free when I 've had enough of you. Remain the obstinate pig you are, and you shall come all the same, but the guillotine shall have you next day."

Her white lips moved.

"You cannot--" she breathed almost inaudibly. Her senses were clouding and reeling, but she clutched desperately at that one thought. Some things were impossible. This was one of them. Death--yes, and oh, quickly, quickly; no more of this torture. But this new, monstrous threat--no, no, dear God! no, such a thing could not, could not happen!

The room was all mist, swirling, rolling mist out of which looked Hebert's eyes. Through it sounded his voice, his laugh.

"Cannot, cannot--fine words, my pretty, fine words. When one has friends, good friends, one can do a good deal more than you think, and instead of finding yourself in the Conciergerie between sentence and execution, I can arrange quite nicely that you should be in these loving arms of mine. Aha, my dear! What do you say now? Will you hear reason, or no?"

The mist covered everything now, and the wall she leaned against seemed to rock and give. She spread out her hands, and with a gasp fell waveringly, first to her knees, and then sideways upon the stones in a dead faint.