The study was dark and cool, for the room faced the west, and the shutters had been closed in order to keep out the hot August sun. At first Juliette could see nothing, but she felt his presence near her, as he followed her into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.
"It is kind of you, mademoiselle," he said gently, "to accede to my request, which was perhaps presumptuous. But, you see, I am leaving this house to-day, and I had a selfish longing to hear your voice bidding me farewell."
Juliette's large, burning eyes were gradually piercing the semi-gloom around her. She could see him distinctly now, standing close beside her, in an attitude of the deepest, almost reverential respect.
The study was as usual neat and tidy, denoting the orderly habits of a man of action and energy. On the ground there was a valise, ready strapped as if for a journey, and on the top of it a bulky letter-case of stout pigskin, secured with a small steel lock. Juliette's eyes fastened upon this case with a look of fascination and of horror. Obviously it contained Déroulède's papers, the palns for Marie Antoinette's escape, the passports of which he had spoken the day before to his friend, Sir Percy Blakeney--the proofs, in fact, which she had offered to the representatives of the people, in support of her denunciation of the Citizen-Deputy.
After his request he had said nothing more. He was waiting for her to speak; but her voice felt parched; it seemed to her as if hands of steel were gripping her throat, smothering the words she would have longed to speak.
"Will you not wish me God-speed, mademoiselle?" he repeated gently.
"God-speed?" Oh, the awful irony of it all! Should God speed him to a mock trial and to the guillotine? He was going thither, though he did not know it, and was even now trying to take the hand which had deliberately sent him there.
At last she made an effort to speak, and in a toneless, even voice she contrived to murmur:
"You are not going for long, Citizen-Deputy?"
"In these times, mademoiselle," he replied, "any farewell might be for ever. But I am actually going for a month to the Conciergerie, to take charge of the unfortunate prisoner there."
"For a month!" she repeated mechanically.
"Oh yes!" he said with a smile. "You see, our present Government is afraid that poor Marie Antoinette will exercise her fascinations over any lieutenant-governor of her prison, if he remain near her long enough, so a new one is appointed every month. I shall be in charge during this coming Vendémaire. I shall hope to return before the equinox, but--who can tell?"
"In any case then, Citoyen Déroulède, the farewell I bid you tonight will be a very long one."
"A month will seem a century to me," he said earnestly, "since I must spend it without seeing you, but--"
He looked long and searchingly at her. He did not understand her in her present mood, so scared and wild did she seem, so unlike that girlish, light-hearted self, which had made the dull old house so bright these past few weeks.
"But I should not dare to hope," he murmured, "that a similar reason would cause you to call that month a long one."
She turned perhaps a trifle paler than she had been hitherto, and her eyes roamed round the room like those of a trapped hare seeking to escape.
"You misunderstand me, Citoyen Déroulède," she said at last hurriedly. "You have all been kind--very kind--but Pétronelle and I can no longer trespass on your hospitality. We have friends in England, and many enemies here--"
"I know," he interrupted quietly; "it would be the most arrant selfishness on my part to suggest that you should stay here an hour longer than is necessary. I fear that after to-day my roof may no longer prove a sheltering one for you. But will you allow me to arrange for your safety, as I am arranging for that of my mother and Anne Mie? My English friend, Sir Percy Blakeney, has a yacht in readiness off the Normandy coast. I have already seen to your passports and to all the arrangements of your journey as far as there, and Sir Percy, or one of hisfriends, will see you safely on board the English yacht. He has given me his promise that he will do this, and I trust him as I would myself. For the journey through France, my name is a sufficient guarantee that you will be unmolested; and, if you will allow it, my mother and Anne Mie will travel in your company. Then--"
"I pray you stop, Citizen Déroulède," she suddenly interrupted excitedly. "You must forgive me, but I cannot allow you thus to make any arrangements for me. Pétronelle and I must do as best we can. All your time and trouble should be spent for the benefit of those who have a claim upon you, whilst I--"
"You speak unkindly, mademoiselle; there is no question of claim."
"And you have no right to think--" she continued, with growing, nervous excitement, drawing her hand hurriedly away, for he had tried to seize it.
"Ah! pardon me," he interrupted earnestly, "there you are wrong. I have the right to think of you and for you--the inalienable right conferred upon me by my great love for you."
"Citizen-Deputy!"
"Nay, Juliette; I know my folly, and I know my presumption. I know the pride of your caste and of your party, and how much you despise the partisan of the squalid mob of France. Have I said that I aspired to gain your love? I wonder if I have ever dreamed it? I only know, Juliette, that you are to me something akin to the angels, something white and ethereal, intangible, and perhaps ununderstandable. Yet, knowing my folly, I glory in it, my dear, and I would not let you go out of my life without telling you of that, which has made every hour of the past few weeks a paradise for me--my love for you, Juliette."
He spoke in that low, impressive voice of his, and with those soft, appealing tones with which she had once heard him pleading for poor Charlotte Corday. Yet now he was not pleading for himself, not for his selfish wish or for his own happiness, only pleading for his love, that she should know of it, and, knowing it, have pity in her heart for him, and let him serve her to the end.
He did not say anything more for a while; he had taken her hand, which she no longer withdrew from him, for there was sweet pleasure in feeling his strong fingers close tremblingly over hers. He pressed his lips upon her hand, upon the soft palm and delicate wrist, his burning kisses bearing witness to the tumultuous passion which his reverence for her was holding in check.
She tried to tear herself away from him, but he would not let her go:
"Do not go away just yet, Juliette," he pleaded. "Think! I may never see you again; but when you are far from me--in England, perhaps--amongst your own kith and kin, will you try sometimes to think kindly of one who so wildly, so madly worships you?"
She would have stilled, an she could, the beating of her heart, which went out to him at last with all the passionate intensity of her great, pent-up love. Every word he spoke had its echo within her very soul, and she tried not to hear his tender appeal, not to see his dark head bending in worship before her. She tried to forget his presence, not to know that he was there--he, the man whom she had betrayed to serve her own miserable vengeance, whom in her mad, exalted rage she had thought that she hated, but whom she now knew that she loved better than her life, better than her soul, her traditions, or her oath.
Now, at this moment, she made every effort to conjure up the vision of her brother brought home dead upon a stretcher, of her father's declining years, rendered hideous by the mind unhinged through the great sorrow.
She tried to think of the avenging finger of God pointing the way to the fulfilment of her oath, and called to Him to stand by her in this terrible agony of her soul.