The Last Hope Part 45

There are many, as you know, who think I shall do it without difficulty.

But I do not propose to deceive _you_, Mademoiselle."

There was a short silence, while Loo watched her face. Juliette had not even changed colour. When she was satisfied that he had nothing more to add, she looked at him, her needle poised in the air.

"Do you think it matters?" she asked, in a little cool, even voice.

It was so different from what he had expected that, for a moment, he was taken aback. Captain Clubbe's bluff, uncompromising reception of the same news had haunted his thoughts. "The square thing," that sailor had said, "and d.a.m.n your friends; d.a.m.n France." Loo looked at Juliette in doubt; then, suddenly, he understood her point of view; he understood her. He had learnt to understand a number of people and a number of points of view during the last twelve months.

"So long as I succeed?" he suggested.

"Yes," she answered, simply. "So long as you succeed, I do not see that it can matter who you are."

"And if I succeed," pursued Loo, gravely, "will you marry me, Mademoiselle?"

"Oh! I never said that," in a voice that was ready to yield to a really good argument.

"And if I fail--" Barebone paused for an instant. He still doubted his own perception. "And if I fail, you would not marry me under any circ.u.mstances?"

"I do not think my father would let me," she answered, with her eyes cast down upon her lace-frame.

Barebone leant forward to put together the logs, which burnt with a white incandescence that told of a frosty night. The Marquis had business in the town, and would soon return from the notary's, in time to dress for dinner.

"Well," said Loo, over his shoulder, "it is as well to understand each other, is it not?"

"Yes," she answered, significantly. She ignored the implied sarcasm altogether. There was so much meaning in her reply that Loo turned to look at her. She was smiling as she worked.

"Yes," she went on; "you have told me your secret--a secret. But I have the other, too; the secret you have not told me, _mon ami_. I have had it always."

"Ah?"

"The secret that you do not love me," said Juliette, in her little wise, even voice; "that you have never loved me. Ah! You think we do not know.

You think that I am too young. But we are never too young to know that, to know all about it. I think we know it in our cradles."

She spoke with a strange philosophy, far beyond her years. It might have been Madame de Chantonnay who spoke, with all that lady's vast experience of life and without any of her folly.

"You think I am pretty. Perhaps I am. Just pretty enough to enable you to pretend, and you have pretended very well at times. You are good at pretending, one must conclude. Oh! I bear no ill-will ..."

She broke off and looked at him, with a gay laugh, in which there was certainly no note of ill-will to be detected.

"But it is as well," she went on, "as you say, that we should understand each other. Thank you for telling me your secret--the one you have told me. I am flattered at that mark of your confidence. A woman is always glad to be told a secret, and immediately begins to antic.i.p.ate the pleasure she will take in telling it to others, in confidence."

She looked up for a moment from her work; for Loo had given a short laugh. She looked, to satisfy herself that it was not the ungenerous laugh that nine men out of ten would have cast at her; and it was not.

For Loo was looking at her with frank amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Oh, yes," she said; "I know that, too. It is one of the items not included in a convent education. It is unnecessary to teach us such things as that. We know them before we go in. Your secret is safe enough with me, however--the one you have told me. That is the least I can promise in return for your confidence. As to the other secret, _bon Dieu_! we will pretend I do not know it, if you like. At all events, you can vow that you never told me, if--if ever you are called upon to do so."

She paused for a moment to finish off a thread. Then, when she reached out her hand for the reel, she glanced at him with a smile, not unkind.

"So you need not pretend any more, monsieur," she said, seeing that Barebone was wise enough to keep silence. "I do not know who you are, _mon ami,_" she went on, in a little burst of confidence; "and, as I told you just now, I do not care. And, as to that other matter, there is no ill-will. I only permit myself to wonder, sometimes, if she is pretty.

That is feminine, I suppose. One can be feminine quite young, you understand."

She looked at him with unfathomable eyes and a little smile, such as men never forget once they have seen it.

"But you were inclined to be ironical just now, when I said I would marry you if you were successful. So I mention that other secret just to show that the understanding you wish to arrive at may be mutual--there may be two sides to it. I hear my father coming. That is his voice at the gate.

We will leave things as they stand: _n'est ce pas?_"

She rose as she spoke and went toward the door. The Marquis's voice was raised, and there seemed to be some unusual clamour at the gate.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

A COUP-D'eTAT

As the Marquis de Gemosac's step was already on the stairs, Barebone was spared the necessity of agreeing in words to the inevitable.

A moment later the old man hurried into the room. He had not even waited to remove his coat and gloves. A few snow-flakes powdered his shoulders.

"Ah!" he cried, on perceiving Barebone. "Good--you are safe!" He turned to speak to some one who was following him up the stairs with the slower steps of one who knew not his way.

"All is well!" he cried. "He is here. Give yourself no anxiety."

And the second comer crossed the threshold, coming suddenly out of the shadow of the staircase. It was Dormer Colville, white with snow, his face grey and worn. He shook hands with Barebone and bowed to Juliette, but the Marquis gave him no time to speak.

"I go down into the town," he explained, breathlessly. "The streets are full. There is a crowd on the marketplace, more especially round the tobacconist's, where the newspapers are to be bought. No newspapers, if you please. The Paris journals of last Sunday, and this is Friday evening. Nothing since that. No Bordeaux journal. No news at all from Paris: absolute silence from Toulouse and Limoges. 'It is another revolution,' they tell each other. Something has happened and no one knows what. A man comes up to me and tugs at my sleeve. 'Inside your walls, Monsieur le Marquis, waste no time,' he whispers, and is gone. He is some stable-boy. I have seen him somewhere. I! inside my walls! Here in Gemosac, where I see nothing but bare heads as I walk through the streets. Name of G.o.d! I should laugh at such a precaution. And while I am still trying to gather information the man comes back to me. 'It is not the people you have to fear,' he whispers in my ear, 'it is the Government. The order for your arrest is at the Gendarmerie, for it was I who took it there. Monsieur Albert was arrested yesterday, and is now in La Roch.e.l.le. Madame de Chantonnay's house is guarded. It is from Madame I come.' And again he goes. While I am hesitating, I hear the step of a horse, tired and yet urged to its utmost. It is Dormer Colville, this faithful friend, who is from Paris in thirty-six hours to warn us. He shall tell his story himself."

"There is not much to tell," said Colville, in a hollow voice. He looked round for a chair and sat down rather abruptly. "Louis Bonaparte is absolute master of France; that is all. He must be so by this time. When I escaped from Paris yesterday morning nearly all the streets were barricaded. But the troops were pouring into the city as I rode out--and artillery. I saw one barricade carried by artillery. Thousands must have been killed in the streets of Paris yesterday--"

"--And, _bon Dieu!_ it is called a _coup-d'etat_," interrupted the Marquis.

"That was on Tuesday," explained Colville, in his tired voice--"at six o'clock on Tuesday morning. Yesterday and Wednesday were days of ma.s.sacre."

"But, my friend," exclaimed the Marquis, impatiently, "tell us how it happened. You laugh! It is no time to laugh."

"I do not know," replied Colville, with an odd smile. "I think there is nothing else to be done--it is all so complete. We are all so utterly fooled by this man whom all the world took to be a dolt. On Tuesday morning he arrested seventy-eight of the Representatives. When Paris awoke, the streets had been placarded in the night with the decree of the President of the Republic. The National a.s.sembly was dissolved. The Council of State was dissolved. Martial law was declared. And why? He does not even trouble to give a reason. He has the army at his back. The soldiers cried '_Vive l'Empereur_' as they charged the crowd on Wednesday. He has got rid of his opponents by putting them in prison.

Many, it is said, are already on their way to exile in Cayenne; the prisons are full. There is a warrant out against myself; against you, Barebone; against you, of course, Monsieur le Marquis. Albert de Chantonnay was arrested at Tours, and is now in La Roch.e.l.le. We may escape--we may get away to-night--"

He paused and looked hurriedly toward the door, for some one was coming up the stairs--some one who wore sabots. It was the servant, Marie, who came unceremoniously into the room with the exaggerated calm of one who realises the gravity of the situation and means to master it.

"The town is on fire," she explained, curtly; "they have begun on the Gendarmerie. Doubtless they have heard that these gentlemen are to be arrested, and it is to give other employment to the gendarmes. But the cavalry has arrived from Saintes, and I come upstairs to ask Monsieur to come down and help. It is my husband who is a fool. Holy Virgin! how many times have I regretted having married such a blockhead as that. He says he cannot raise the drawbridge. To raise it three feet would be to gain three hours. So I came to get Monsieur," she pointed at Barebone with a steady finger, "who has his wits on the top always and two hands at the end of his arms."

"But it is little use to raise the drawbridge," objected the Marquis.

"They will soon get a ladder and place it against the breach in the wall and climb in."

"Not if I am on the wall who amuse myself with a hayfork, Monsieur le Marquis," replied Marie, with that exaggerated respect which implies a knowledge of mental superiority. She beckoned curtly to Loo and clattered down the stairs, followed by Barebone. The others did not attempt to go to their a.s.sistance, and the Marquis de Gemosac had a hundred questions to ask Colville.

The Englishman had little to tell of his own escape. There were so many more important arrests to be made that the overworked police of Monsieur de Maupas had only been able to apportion to him a bungler whom Colville had easily outwitted.