Boulaye was at the door vociferating wildly.
Into the room came the hostess, breathless and grinning with anxiety, and behind her came Guyot, who, startled by the din, had hastened up to inquire into its cause.
At sight of the Captain stretched upon the floor there was a scream from Mother Capoulade and an oath from the soldier.
'Mon Dieu! what has happened?' she cried, hurrying forward.
'Miserable!' exclaimed La Boulaye, with well-feigned anger. 'It seems that your wretched hovel is tumbling to pieces, and that men are not safe beneath its roof.' And he indicated the broken plaster and the fallen lamp.
'How did it happen, Citoyenne-deputy?' asked Guyot; for all that he drew the only possible inference from what he saw.
'Can you not see how it happened?' returned La Boulaye, impatiently. 'As for you, wretched woman, you will suffer for it, I promise you. The nation is likely to demand a high price for Captain Charlot's injuries.'
'But, bon Dieu, how am I to blame?' wailed the frightened woman.
'To blame,' echoed La Boulaye, in a furious voice. 'Are you not to blame that you let rooms in a crazy hovel? Let them to emigres as much as you will, but if you let them to good patriots and thereby endanger their lives you must take the consequences. And the consequences in this case are likely to be severe, malheureuse.'
He turned now to Guyot, who was kneeling by the Captain, and looking to his hurt.
'Here, Guyot,' he commanded sharply, 'reconduct the Citoyenne to her coach. I will perhaps see her again later, when the Captain shall have recovered consciousness. You, Citoyenne Capoulade, assist me to carry him to bed.'
Each obeyed him, Guyot readily, as became a soldier, and the hostess trembling with the dread which La Boulaye's words had instilled into her. They got Charlot to bed, and when a half-hour or so later he recovered consciousness, it was to find Guyot watching at his bed-side. Bewildered, he demanded an explanation of his present position and of the pain in his head, which brought him the memory of a sudden and unaccountable blow he had received, which was the last thing that he remembered. Guyot, who had never for a moment entertained a doubt of the genuineness of the mise-en-scene La Boulaye had prepared, answered him with the explanation of how he had been struck by the falling lamp, whereupon Charlot fell to cursing lamps and crumblings with horrid volubility. That done he would have risen, but that La Boulaye, entering at that moment, insisted that he should remain abed.
'Are you mad?' the Deputy expostulated, 'or is it that you do not appreciate the nature of your hurt? Diable! I have known a man die through insisting to be about with a cracked skull that was as nothing to yours.'
'Name of a name!' gasped Charlot, who in such matters was profoundly ignorant and correspondingly credulous. 'Is it so serious?'
'Not serious if you lie still and sleep. You will probably be quite well by to-morrow. But if you move to-night the consequences may well be fatal.'
'But I cannot sleep at this hour,' the Captain complained. 'I am very wakeful.'
'We will try to find you a sleeping potion, then,' said La Boulaye. 'I hope the hosteen may have something that will answer the purpose. Meanwhile, Guyot, do not allow the Captain to talk. If you would have him well to- morrow, remember that it is of the first importance that he should have utter rest tonight.'
With that he went in quest of Dame Capoulade to ascertain whether she possessed any potion that would induce sleep. He told her that the Captain was seriously injured, and that unless he slept he might die, and, quickened by the terror of what might befall her in such a case, the woman presently produced a small phial full of a brown, viscous fluid. What it might be he had no notion, being all unversed in the mysteries of the pharmacopoeia; but she told him that it had belonged to her now defunct husband, who had always said that ten drops of it would make a man sleep the clock round.
He experimented on the Captain with ten drops, and within a quarter of an hour of taking the draught of red wine in which it was administered, Charlot's deep breathing proclaimed him fast asleep.
That done, La Boulaye sent Guyot below to his post once more, and returning to the room in which they had supped, he paced up and down for a full hour, revolving in his mind the matter of saving Mademoiselle and her mother. At last, towards ten o'clock, he opened the casement, and calling down to Guyot, as Charlot had done, he bade him bring the women up again. Now Guyot knew of the high position which Caron occupied in the Convention, and he had seen the intimate relations in which he stood to Tardivet, so that unhesitatingly he now obeyed him.
La Boulaye closed the window, and crossed slowly to the fire. He stirred the burning logs with his boot, then stood there waiting. Presently the stairs creaked, next the door opened, and Guyot ushered in Mademoiselle.
'The elder citoyenne refuses to come, Citizen-deputy,' said the soldier. 'They both insisted that it was not necessary, and that the Citoyenne here would answer your questions.'
Almost on the point of commanding the soldier to return for the Marquise, Caron caught the girl's eye, and her glance was so significant that he thought it best to hear first what motives she had for thus disobeying him.
'Very well,' he said shortly. 'You may go below, Guyot. But hold yourself in readiness lest I should have need of you.'
The soldier saluted and disappeared. Scarce was he gone when Mademoiselle came hurrying forward.
'Monsieur Caron,' she cried 'Heaven is surely befriending us. The soldiers are drinking themselves out of their wits. They will be keeping a slack watch presently.'
He looked at her for a moment, fathoming the purport of what she said.
'But,' he demanded at last, 'why did not the Marquise obey my summons, and accompany you?'
'She was afraid to leave the coach, Monsieur. Moreover, she agreed with me that it would not be necessary.'
'Not necessary?' he echoed. 'But it is necessary. When last you were here I told you I did not intend you should return to the coach. This is my plan, Citoyenne. I shall keep Guyot waiting below while you and your mother are fortifying yourselves by supper here. Then I shall dismiss him with a recommendation that he keep a close watch upon the carriage, and the information that you will not be returning to it to-night. A half-hour later or so, when things are quiet, I shall find a way out for you by the back, after which the rest must remain in your hands. More I cannot do.'
'You can,' she cried; 'you can.'
'If you will enlighten me,' said he, with the faintest touch of irony.
She looked at his stern, sardonic face and solemn grey eyes, and for a moment it almost seemed to her that she hated him more than anybody in the world. He was so passionless, so master of himself, and he addressed her in a tone which, whilst it suggested that he accounted himself most fully her equal, made her feel that he was really her better by much. If one of these two was an aristocrat, surely that one was the Citizen- deputy La Boulaye.
'If you had but the will you would do it, Monsieur,' she answered him. 'It is not mine to enlighten you; I know not how.'
'I have the very best will in the world, Citoyenne,' said he. 'Of that I think that I am giving proof.'
'Aye, the will to do nothing that will shame your manhood,' she rejoined. 'That is all you think of. It was because your manhood bade you that you came to my rescue—so you said when you declined my thanks. It is this manhood of yours, I make no doubt, that is now prevailing upon you to deliver two unprotected women out of the hands of these brigands.'
'In Heaven's name, Citoyenne,' quoth the astonished Deputy, 'out of what sentiment would you have me act, and, indeed, so that I save you, how can it concern you by what sentiment I am prompted?'
She paused a moment before replying. Her eyes were downcast, and some of the colour faded from her cheeks. She came a step nearer, which brought her very close to him.
'Monsieur,' she faltered very shyly, 'in the old days at Bellecour you would have served me out of other sentiments.'
He started now in spite of himself, and eyed her with a sudden gleam of hope, or triumph, or mistrust, or perhaps of all three. Then his glance fell, and his voice was wistful.
