“And so you think, Louis, that our perilous undertaking has really ended well by this tim e?” said Rose, anxiously, as she lighted the lamp and placed the glass shade over it. “What a relief it is only to hear you say you think we have succeeded at last!”
“I said I hope, Rose,” replied her brother.
“Well, even hoped is a great word from you, Louis–a great word from any one in this fearful city, and in these days of Terror.”
She stopped suddenly, seeing her brother raise his hand in warning. They looked at each other in silence and listened. The sound of footsteps going slowly past the house–ceasing for a moment just beyond it–then going on again–came through the open window. There was nothing else, out-of-doors or in, to disturb the silence of the night–the deadly silence of Terror which, for months past, had hung over Paris. It was a significant sign of the times, that even a passing footstep, sounding a little strangely at night, was subject for suspicion, both to brother and sister–so common a subject, that they suspended their conversation as a matter of course, without exchanging a word of explanation, until the tramp of the strange footsteps had died away.
“Louis,” continued Rose, dropping her voice to a whisper, after nothing more was audible, “when may I trust our secret to my husband?”
“Not yet!” rejoined Trudaine, earnestly. “Not a word, not a hint of it, till I give you leave. Remember, Rose, you promised silence from the first. Everything depends on your holding that promise sacred till I release you from it.”
“I will hold it sacred; I will indeed, at all hazards, under all provocations,” she answered.
“That is quite enough to reassure me–and now, love, let us change the subject. Even these walls may have ears, and the closed door yonder may be no protection.” He looked toward it uneasily while he spoke. “By-the-by, I have come round to your way of thinking, Rose, about that new servant of mine–there is something false in his face. I wish I had been as quick to detect it as you were.”
Rose glanced at him affrightedly. “Has he done anything suspicious? Have you caught him watching you? Tell me the worst, Louis.”
“Hush! hush! my dear, not so loud. Don’t alarm yourself; he has done nothing suspicious.”
“Turn him off–pray, pray turn him off, before it is too late!”
“And be denounced by him, in revenge, the first night he goes to his Section. You forget that servants and masters are equal now. I am not supposed to keep a servant at all. I have a citizen living with me who lays me under domestic obligations, for which I make a pecuniary acknowledgment. No! no! if I do anything, I must try if I can’t entrap him into giving me warning. But we have got to another unpleasant subject already–suppose I change the topic again? You will find a little book on that table there, in the corner–tell me what you think of it.”
The book was a copy of Corneille’s “Cid,” prettily bound in blue morocco. Rose was enthusiastic in her praises. “I found it in a bookseller’s shop, yesterday,” said her brother, “and bought it as a present for you. Corneille is not an author to compromise any one, even in these times. Don’t you remember saying the other day that you felt ashamed of knowing but little of our greatest dramatist?” Rose remembered well, and smiled almost as happily as in the old times over her present. “There are some good engravings at the beginning of each act,” continued Trudaine, directing her attention rather earnestly to the illustrations, and then suddenly leaving her side when he saw that she became interested in looking at them.
He went to the window–listened–then drew aside the curtain, and looked up and down the street. No living soul was in sight. “I must have been mistaken,” he thought, returning hastily to his sister; “but I certainly fancied I was followed in my walk to-day by a spy.”
“I wonder,” asked Rose, still busy over her book, “I wonder, Louis, whether my husband would let me go with you to see ‘Le Cid’ the next time it is acted.”
“No!” cried a voice at the door; “not if you went on your knees to ask him.”
Rose turned round with a scream. There stood her husband on the threshold, scowling at her, with his hat on, and his hands thrust doggedly into his pockets. Trudaine’s servant announced him, with an insolent smile, during the pause that followed the discovery. “Citizen Superintendent Danville, to visit the citoyenne, his wife,” said the fellow, making a mock bow to his master.
Rose looked at her brother, then advanced a few paces toward the door. “This is a surprise,” she said, faintly; “has anything happened? We–we didn’t expect you.” Her voice failed her as she saw her husband advancing, pale to his very lips with suppressed anger.
“How dare you come here, after what I told you?” he asked, in quick, low tones.
She shrank at his voice almost as if he had struck her. The blood flew into her brother’s face as he noticed the action; but he controlled himself, and, taking her hand, led her in silence to a chair.
“I forbid you to sit down in his house,” said Danville, advancing still; “I order you to come back with me! Do you hear? I order you.”
He was approaching nearer to her, when he caught Trudaine’s eye fixed on him, and stopped. Rose started up, and placed herself between them.
“Oh, Charles, Charles!” she said to her husband, “be friends with Louis to-night, and be kind again to me. I have a claim to ask that much of you, though you may not think it!”
He turned away from her, and laughed contemptuously. She tried to speak again, but Trudaine touched her on the arm, and gave her a warning look.
“Signals!” exclaimed Danville; “secret signals between you!”
His eye, as he glanced suspiciously at his wife, fell on Trudaine’s gift-book, which she still held unconsciously.
“What book is that?” he asked.
“Only a play of Corneille’s,” answered Rose; “Louis has just made me a present of it.”
At this avowal Danville’s suppressed anger burst beyond all control.
“Give it him back!” he cried, in a voice of fury. “You shall take no presents from him; the venom of the household spy soils everything he touches. Give it him back!” She hesitated. “You won’t?” He tore the book from her with an oath, threw it on the floor, and set his foot on it.
“Oh, Louis! Louis! for God’s sake, remember.”
Trudaine was stepping forward as the book fell to the floor. At the same moment his sister threw her arms round him. He stopped, turning from fiery red to ghastly pale.
“No, no, Louis!” she said, clasping him closer; “not after five years’ patience. No–no!”
He gently detached her arms.
“You are right, love. Don’t be afraid; it is all over now.”
Saying that, he put her from him, and in silence took up the book from the floor.
“Won’t that offend you even?” said Danville, with an insolent smile. “You have a wonderful temper–any other man would have called me out!”
Trudaine looked back at him steadily; and taking out his handkerchief, passed it over the soiled cover of the book.
“If I could wipe the stain of your blood off my conscience as easily as I can wipe the stain of your boot off this book,” he said quietly, “you should not live another hour. Don’t cry, Rose,” he continued, turning again to his sister: “I will take care of your book for you until you can keep it yourself.”
“You will do this! you will do that!” cried Danville, growing more and more exasperated, and letting his anger got the better even of his cunning now. “Talk less confidently of the future–you don’t know what it has in store for you. Govern your tongue when you are in my presence; a day may come when you will want my help–my help; do you hear that?”
Trudaine turned his face from his sister, as if he feared to let her see it when those words were spoken.
“The man who followed me to-day was a spy–Danville’s spy!” That thought flashed across his mind, but he gave it no utterance. There was an instant’s pause of silence; and through it there came heavily on the still night air the rumbling of distant wheels. The sound advanced nearer and nearer–advanced and ceased under the window.
Danville hurried to it, and looked out eagerly. “I have not hastened my return without reason. I wouldn’t have missed this arrest for anything!” thought he, peering into the night.
The stars were out, but there was no moon. He could not recognize either the coach or the persons who got out of it, and he turned again into the interior of the room. His wife had sunk into a chair, her brother was locking up in a cabinet the book which he had promised to take care of for her. The dead silence made the noise of slowly ascending footsteps on the stairs painfully audible. At last the door opened softly.