The kicking ceased, and she heard the stranger give a dreadful groan. “For the mercy of Heaven, let me in! I am wounded and have no arms.” He began to wail pitifully.
Lucile listened. It seemed that there was but one, and if he were wounded, he would not harm her. There was another groan outside. Human sympathy rose in her heart; she unlocked the door and opened it cautiously.
A man walked quickly into the room: it was Miguel. “I beg Your Excellency’s pardon,” he said suavely, with that composure which always strengthened his mean soul; “I am in need of a hiding-place.”
“But your wound?” she said.
“A ruse de guerre; I wanted you to let me in. Where can I hide? They may be here soon.”
“There on the roof, or in the observatory,” she said pointing to the other door.
“Do not tell them.”
“Why should I?” she replied. Calm though the man undoubtedly was, she despised him; there was no dirt, she knew well, that he would not eat if it suited his purpose to do so.
He went up and concealed himself on the roof under the big telescope. Meanwhile she waited. Emotions had succeeded each other so rapidly that day in her heart that she felt incapable of further stress; a dull feeling of pain remained, like the numbness and sense of injury after a severe wound. The firing receded towards the palace, and presently all was comparatively silent in the city again.
At about nine o’clock the bell of the front-entrance rang; but she did not dare to leave the room now that the door was broken down. Then after a while came the sound of people coming upstairs.
“There is no lady here; the young lady went back the night before last to her aunt’s,” said a voice. It was the old woman’s; with a bound of joy and a passionate craving for the sympathy of her own sex, Lucile rushed to the door and opened it. Bettine was there, and with her an officer of the rebel army, who handed a letter to her with these words: “The President sends this to you, Madam.”
“The President!”
“Of the Council of Public Safety.”
The note merely informed her that the Government troops had been repulsed and ended with the words: “Only one result is now possible, and that will be attained in a few hours.”
The officer, saying that he would wait downstairs in case she might wish to send an answer, left the room. Lucile pulled the old nurse inside the door and embraced her, weeping. Where had she been all that terrible night? Bettine had been in the cellar. It seemed that Savrola had thought of her as of everything; he had told her to take her bed down there, and had even had the place carpeted and furnished on the preceding afternoon. There she had remained as he had told her. Her perfect trust in her idol had banished all fears on her own account, but she had “fidgeted terribly” about him. He was all she had in the world; others dissipate their affections on a husband, children, brothers, and sisters; all the love of her kind old heart was centred in the man she had fostered since he was a helpless baby. And he did not forget. She displayed with pride a slip of paper, bearing the words, “Safe and well.”
There was now a subdued sound of firing, from the direction of the palace, which continued throughout the morning; but Miguel, seeing that the streets were again quiet, emerged from his concealment and reentered the room. “I want to see the President,” he said.
“My husband?” asked Lucile.
“No, Your Excellency, Señor Savrola.” Miguel was quick in adapting himself to circumstances.
Lucile thought of the officer; she mentioned him to Miguel. “He will take you to the Mayoralty.”
The Secretary was delighted; he ran downstairs and they saw him no more.
The old nurse, with a practical soul, busied herself about getting breakfast. Lucile, to divert her thoughts, aided her, and soon—such is our composition—found comfort in eggs and bacon. They were relieved to find that a picket had again been posted at the street-door. Bettine discovered this, for Lucile, her mood unchanged, would not look into the street where she had seen such grim spectacles. And she did right, for though the barricade was now deserted, nearly twenty objects that had a few hours before been men, lay around or upon it. But about eleven some labourers arrived with two scavengers’ carts; and soon only the bloodstains on the pavement showed that there had been any destruction other than that of property.
The morning wore slowly and anxiously away. The firing near the palace was continual, but distant. Sometimes it swelled into a dull roar, at others the individual shots sounded in a sort of quick rattle. At last, at about half-past two, it stopped abruptly. Lucile trembled. The quarrel had been decided, one way or the other. Her mind refused to face all the possibilities. At times she clung in passionate fear to the old nurse, who tried in vain to soothe her; at others she joined her in the household tasks, or submitted to tasting the various meals which the poor old soul prepared for her in the hopes of killing care with
