Chapter 51

LOVE ENDURETH ALL THINGS

Cyrène, 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 Honoré. 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 circumstances 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 _Régime_."

Cyrène had not noticed how she had been sleeping; she now saw that her bed was a pile of straw on a box.

"Get up, you sow, and sweep my floor!" exclaimed the ragman's wife. "Get up!"

Cyrène's first instinct was to lie still in tacit disdain. The recollection of Germain, however, crossed her mind. Rather submit to anything than exasperate his enemies; so she rose, with an effort. Her limbs felt heavy.

"Out now, take this broom, you sot, and sweep the floor."

Cyrène came out and proceeded to brush aside the dust between the piles of metal. Wife Gougeon sat back on a block of wood and laughed, in immense enjoyment.

"So you were a baroness once, one of the heretofores? Well, I like baronesses to do my dirty work for me and Montmorencys for my sweeps. You never thought the people would arrive at this, eh? You thought, you aristocrats, that you could have the fine houses and we could do all the scullery work. How do you like it? Oh, I have dirtier work than that that I will make you do. This is only the commencement. Sweep that board clean, you pig!"

The woman fumed at Cyrène's silence.

"Have you no tongue, animal? Why don't you answer when I speak? I'll teach you," and, her eyes glittering, she picked up an iron bolt and threw it at her victim. It struck Cyrène's arm, bruising it severely. The girl winced, but continued wielding the broom as meekly as before.

"Ah," went on Wife Gougeon, "do you know what I will do with you? I will have your head sliced off. What nice necks you 'heretofores' have. I've seen many a one chopped through."

"Hush, hush, dear citizeness Gougeon," said the Abbé, appearing near by. "I brought the citizeness to you for protection; I wish to speak to her apart--say in the chamber there."

Cyrène looked at him in sorrowful relief.

"Citizeness," he said, making the greatest effort at ingratiation, "I have a few things to speak to you. You will excuse us, citizeness Gougeon?"

"Republicans do not excuse and excuse like you 'heretofores.' If it were not for the Galley, I would slice your neck to-morrow too. Go, and be quick about it, Blacklegs, while I wait to see her sweep for me again."

Cyrène staggered after him in her weakness into her chamber again, and, while she sat upon her pallet, he shut the door, took a candle down from a beam, and lit it.

"Do not mind her," he said while doing so. "She is a Jacobiness."

She looked at him as closely as her fevered sight permitted, and saw that he was shivering with excitement and his long face and downcast eyes contorting.

She sat speechless, unable to comprehend him.

"Madame Baroness," said he, "have you never wondered at your long escape from the perils of these times? When the mansions of others were burned, your house has been free from molestation; when their goods were appropriated by the nation, yours have been left intact; when all aristocrats have been sent to the guillotine, you have slept in safety. Have you not thought this strange?"

The questioning seemed to be lost upon her, except for a nod.

"Did you never," he went on, "suspect that some power was protecting you, and ask by whose influence you were thus surrounded and your peace secured? Did you never recognise a faithfulness which relaxed at no moment, a care which was unlimited--in a word, a secret friend at the source of affairs? Madame, I was that friend."

He stopped and looked at her, his increasing excitement overcoming his stealth. She was moved, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

"I am grateful, Abbé Jude; let me say it from my heart. You have been wronged by us. We believed you were different."

At the tribute his eager look intensified itself into a piercing gaze which made her feel dread of him.

"Yes, I was that secret friend," he cried. "It was I who protected you at the sections, I struck your name from the lists of proscriptions, I diverted the marches of the patriots from your portals. Do you think all this would be done for three years without true faithfulness?"

"You have indeed proved yourself a loyal friend."

"More than that," he exclaimed; "it was more than loyalty, it was worship! Madame, believe me your name has always been to me a sacred adoration, a passion, an affection beyond expression. Do you doubt it? Know that I loved you from the first moment I saw you in the house of the Princess de Poix. I loved you, I adored you secretly, I sought for a favourable time to declare my passion."

Her eyes opened wide as she listened, and she would have given worlds to escape, yet her feeling was mainly of pity.

"This is very unfortunate. Calm yourself, Abbé. I will ever have a lively feeling of gratefulness for your devotion. Think of me on those terms."

"Ah, Madame, those were the only terms which might have been possible in former days; but they do not belong to the new _régime_. We are all equal now. Nothing will satisfy me short of possessing you entirely."

"Abbé, you are excited."

"No, citizeness, I have long been determined you shall be my mate." She shrank from the word and the uncanny passion of his gaze.

"When you will have reflected a few hours you will see that this is impossible."

"What! impossible? And why impossible? Ah, yes, I know, it is because of your pretty-faced lover Répentigny. I know all about that. I could have crushed him between my fingers; and I will crush him yet. What!--that man between myself and you! Why, then, did I bring you here? Was it to allow his interference with my object? After all I have done for you, am I to be met with answers of this sort?"

"I appreciate entirely your services, Abbé; they are too great to be underrated."

"They shall be more, citizeness. In these days it is _my_ turn to dictate."

"Am I to understand that this has been your aim all along?"

He hesitated, but replied boldly, "It has, and were it not for that, I might long ago have pointed out both you and your doll-head lover to the Committee of Public Safety."

"Then your whole service has been abstention from positive treachery for your own ends?"

"You dare me? Caution, citizeness! You are in my power."

"In your power? You are a coward as well as a knave, then?"

"Remember still more," he hissed, losing all control of himself, "that your lover also is in my power; he is captured."

"My God! you have brought us to this!" she cried.

The door creaked and the Admiral entered.

"Be off, you cur!" said he, standing sternly over the Abbé, who shrank as if struck. "Go to your work, you----"

A look of terror upon his countenance, Jude precipitated himself through the doorway.

The Admiral closed it, and returning, sat down by the candle and began to talk to Cyrène. Seeing his features so close and large and accentuated by the candle-light, their coarseness and horror filled her with wonder.

"So that fellow boasts of his fidelity!" he exclaimed, in a repulsively modulated and familiar tone. "What a wealth of tenderness such a kidnapping shows! Possibly you knew his profession, citizeness?--that of salaried spy. Your protector he claims to be? Excellent--when he could not turn a straw in your favour. He has deprived you of your freedom; that was easier in these times. I, on the other hand," he added, smiling yet more hideously, "am here to return it to you."

"I thank you," she replied wearily, without hope.

"I shall reveal to you the true reason of your immunity for so long from the wrath of the people. It was because of Répentigny, not of yourself. I arranged it, and you were then unknown to me. Through him Bec and Caron, two friends of the people, had died six years ago, in the days of the tyrant. It was I, as avenger, not the worm Jude as lover, who watched over your household in the Rue Honoré, reserving Répentigny for prolonged punishment. It was I whose power surrounded you as it has surrounded all Paris." He paused proudly.

"Citizeness, last night I saw you for the first time. Your wonderful courage, your astonishing beauty, overcame the most martial of hearts."

She started and shivered violently. Was she to endure two proposals within the hour, from such revolting creatures, and at what violence would their outrages end?

"Come," he said, offering to embrace her. She started back in terror.

"Do not tremble," he went on patronisingly; "you have nothing to fear from me, everything to expect. I am able to give you whatever you ask--mansions, carriages, jewels, pleasures, unlimited wealth, unlimited power. These are in my hands. I rule Paris--yes, France--and shall rule Europe. You shall sit by my side, and the whole world shall serve you. They shall fear or love you as you will, but I am able to see that they obey you or sink under my hand. Do not fear the squalor of these brutes whom I govern; you shall see nothing of them, for we shall sit upon the heights of the Revolution. Around us Paris shall always be gay and fascinating. Tell me your slightest wish, citizeness; it shall be yours."

"You will grant me a wish?" she exclaimed.

"Assuredly," he answered.

"Take me, then," said she, "to him you call Répentigny."

"Répentigny or Lecour?" he said, pointing to the name. "Citizeness, he is unworthy of you--totally unworthy."

"Maligner!"

"Keep your coolness, Madame; the man has long deceived you. The story that he is a plebeian is true. I can prove it."

"I asked you nothing of that sort; take me--only take me to him. Keep your promise."

"Very well, citizeness, there is but one condition. He is in the Conciergerie--in going to him you must, like him, be committed to be condemned."

"Gladly! gladly! Take me to him--take me to him--for the love of heaven."

"I love not heaven very much, citizeness, but, curse you, you seem fool enough to be granted what you ask. Look out of this door."

Obeying, she saw that a crowd of _Sans-culottes_ had filled the shop.

Carmagnoled and sabred, they lounged in slothful consultation and obscured the air with bad tobacco-smoke. On the Admiral opening the door, they rose in a disorderly way and made him a sort of salute.

"Arrest her," he ordered, beckoning the two foremost and waving his skinny hand back to Cyrène. They came forward and grasped her arms.

"To the Conciergerie!" he said, "and each of you answers for her with your head."

As terrified as she, the two guards tied her hands and marched her off through the Street of the Hanged Man.

In times of great misery strange things bring us happiness; the thought of her condemnation to death lifted her like an aerial tide, because being with Germain went with it.