'I had no part in what has befallen you,' Marianne interrupted him quietly, 'and my jewels are my own. But suppose we were to mention your own activities which are my best excuse for anything I may have done. I accuse you of lighting false fires on the shore to draw unhappy vessels to destruction on the rocks on stormy nights, of robbing corpses and doing to death the injured. I accuse you of being that worst of all human fiends, a wrecker! If I deceived you, it was to save my life. That is my legitimate defence. If these men are, as I think, faithful subjects of the king, they should hold you in abhorrence!'
Bruslart's great fist slammed down ringingly on the red table.
'Silence! What we may think concerns only ourselves. We are not here to settle a quarrel but to pass judgement on your actions, madame. Answer me. Your name is Marianne-Elizabeth d'Asselnat de Villeneuve as you told this man?' He indicated Morvan. 'But you are living in Paris under the name of Marianne Mallerousse, a name given you by Nicholas Mallerousse, one of Fouche's most active agents. And you have been employed of late as reader to Madame Grand.'
'To her most serene highness the Princess of Benevento,' Marianne corrected him proudly. 'You should have thought of that before you kidnapped me. Do you think that when my absence is noted in the morning there will be no search made?'
'No danger of that! The prince will receive word this morning, by a very short discreetly worded note, that you have found such favour with – the person you know of, that your presence is desired for sometime longer in that charming woodland retreat where you spent the night.'
Marianne acknowledged a hit, fighting down the pain she felt at this cynical reminder of the blissful hours she had spent there. Then another thought came to her. Fouche, who always knew everything, who had agents everywhere, surely he would learn of his star's sudden disappearance! Perhaps he knew already that she had been taken to La Selle St Cloud, although there was no reason why he should be watching the house of someone of no particular importance. But there was also a possibility that Talleyrand, deceived by the letter, would arrange for Fouche to learn of what, in his eyes, would after all be no more than an amorous escapade.
The chevalier's cold voice interrupted the somewhat melancholy trend of her thought .
'Will you tell me, yes or no, whether you are indeed Marianne d'Asselnat?'
'Since you know I am,' Marianne said rebelliously, 'why do you ask? Are we in a court of justice? Are you a real judge?'
'So, you admit your name and rank – you admit them and yet—'
Bruslart paused. His bearded face twisted with sudden fury as he roared:
' – and yet, you, the daughter of a noble house, the daughter of two martyrs who died for their king, you have not feared to associate with the vilest rabble of this monstrous regime, you have dared to meddle with Fouche's police, to become an informer – and worse!'
So, he knew it all. In spite of herself, Marianne felt a red flush of shame sweep over her face. She understood that for these silent men whose eyes were fixed on her like so many daggers, that was her greatest crime, that she had seemed to come to terms with the regime of the hated Bonaparte. It troubled her like an unfair stigma. Could she make them see that they were wrong, that appearances alone were against her?
'Monsieur,' she said in a low voice, 'that I came to this country, that I have seemed to accept its laws and conditions, was because I had no choice. I did so to save my life. I can explain in detail, if you are willing to listen. But which of you has never tried to save his life at the cost of a lie? Which of you has never taken refuge in a borrowed name and character in such times as these?'
'We have lied,' acknowledged one of the judges who was still masked, 'and we have worn borrowed characters, but we have never betrayed our own people or compounded with the enemy.'
'I have never betrayed my own people!' Marianne cried passionately. 'It is my own people who have betrayed me. I was alone and helpless and I asked for help and assistance from one close to King Louis, and he rejected me without mercy, abandoning me knowingly to the worst of fates! But I have never compounded with Bonaparte's regime! I was brought up in England, brought up to hate him and I recognize his power no more than you. Whatever he made me suffer, I never betrayed the man I knew as Morvan. As for the tyrant who reigns here, I swear on my mother's grave, that I have always execrated—'
Before she could finish, one of the riders, the one who had been addressed as the Baron de Saint-Hubert, had rounded on her, his arm raised and his eyes alight with such a murderous fury that Marianne recoiled instinctively with a cry of terror.
'Renegade! Perjurer! Blasphemer! You should be burned alive for what you have just dared to say, for daring to soil your mother's memory with a lie! You serve to die in torment! Miserable creature! You dare to say you hate Napoleon?'
Saint-Hubert's hand fell heavily on Marianne's arm. He flung her violently to her knees and held her there.
'You dare to say? Dare you say it again?'
Marianne was white with shock but even now she refused to give way to her fear.
'Yes—' she whispered. 'I do dare!'
Without releasing his hold on her arm, Saint-Hubert dealt her a ringing blow to the head which sent her sprawling on the ground.
'You filthy little vagabond! So frightened for your skin you'll swear to anything! But your lies shall not save you, do you hear? So you hate Napoleon, do you? Did you hate him so much, tonight, at Butard?'
'At – Butard?' Marianne echoed dazedly.
'Yes, at Butard! At the delightful nest he keeps for his amours and where you spent the night! Or perhaps you were not in his bed? It was not he who made love to you, eh?'
Marianne's head reeled. Everything seemed suddenly to have gone mad, the world was falling to pieces about her ears. In her horror, she began to scream:
'No! No! It's not true! You are lying! The man I saw is called Charles Denis! An ordinary bourgeois.'
'Will you not cease your lies? And to think that I admired your courage, that I was ready to speak for you, perhaps to help you!'
Mad with rage, the baron was about to strike again but Bruslart sprang forward suddenly and tore the terrified girl from his friend's grip and thrust her behind his own broad back.
'Enough, Baron de Saint-Hubert!' he said grimly. 'I am no murderer, or persecutor of women! The girl is too frightened to know what she is saying.'
'Say rather she's making a mockery of us all, chevalier! Leave her to me, I'll make her talk. Creatures of her kind deserve no pity.'
'And I say enough! There is something here I do not understand—'
He turned to where Marianne lay half unconscious, face downwards on the ground. He helped her up and made her sit on a low stool. Marianne's head was ringing like a cathedral bell. She struggled unsuccessfully to collect her thoughts but decided that she must be going mad. What did these men mean? Of course, that was it. They were mad – or else she was the victim of some terrible misunderstanding. Charles! – Charles! Of God! How could they confuse him with the adventurer who held all Europe under his heel? He was so kind and gentle! They did not know him. They could not know him. He was just an ordinary man – God, how her head hurt!
Marianne became aware of the rim of a glass pressed to her lips.
'Drink this,' the chevalier ordered. 'Then we will try and get to the bottom of this.'
'Charles!' she moaned. 'Charles Denis. You cannot know—'
'Drink, I tell you. You are green.'
She drank. The wine was strong and heady. Its warmth ran quickly through her chilled body, reviving a little spark of life. Pushing the glass away with her hand, she stared at the chevalier with such a lost expression that he nodded with a trace of pity.
'So young and yet so depraved?' he murmured under his breath.
'There is no age in women's depravity!' There was no pity in Morvan's voice.
'I have asked you to let me sort this out, Monsieur the Wrecker,' Bruslart retorted, without looking round. 'Stand back a little, gentlemen, you are upsetting her.'
The Baron de Saint-Hubert gave a sardonic crack of laughter.
'One of these days, chevalier, your incorrigible weakness for women will make you do something stupid. I am not sure that day has not come.'
