CHAPTER XIX
Complexities.
Citizen-Deputy Deroulede had been privately interviewed by the Committeeof Public Safety, and temporarily allowed to go free.
The brief proceedings had been quite private, the people of Paris werenot to know as yet that their favourite was under a cloud. When he hadanswered all the questions put to him, and Merlin--just returned fromhis errand at the Luxembourg Prison--had given his version of thedomiciliary visitation in the Citizen-Deputy's house, the latter wasbriefly told that for the moment the Republic had no grievance againsthim.
But he knew quite well what that meant. He would be henceforth undersuspicion, watched incessantly, as a mouse is by the cat, and pouncedupon, the moment time would be considered propitious for his finaldownfall.
The inevitable waning of his popularity would be noted by keen, jealouseyes; and Deroulede, with his sure knowledge of mankind and ofcharacter, knew well enough that his popularity was bound to wane sooneror later, as all such ephemeral things do.
In the meanwhile, during the short respite which his enemies would leavehim, his one thought and duty would be to get his mother and Anne Miesafely out of the country.
And also ...
He thought of _her,_ and wondered what had happened. As he walkedswiftly across the narrow footbridge, and reached the other side of theriver, the events of the past few hours rushed upon his memory withterrible, overwhelming force.
A bitter ache filled his heart at the remembrance of her treachery. Thebaseness of it all was so appalling. He tried to think if he had everwronged her; wondered if perhaps she loved someone else, and wished_him_ out of her way.
But, then, he had been so humble, so unassuming in his love. He hadarrogated nothing unto himself, asked for nothing, demanded nothing invirtue of his protecting powers over her.
He was torturing himself with this awful wonderment of why she hadtreated him thus.
Out of revenge for her brother's death--that was the only explanation hecould find, the only palliation for her crime.
He knew nothing of her oath to her father, and, of course, had neverheard of the sad history of this young, sensitive girl placed in oneterrible moment between her dead brother and her demented father. Heonly thought of common, sordid revenge for a sin he had been practicallyforced to commit.
And how he had loved her! Yes, _loved_--for that was in the past now.
She had ceased to be a saint or a madonna; she had fallen from herpedestal so low that he could not find the way to descend and gropeafter the fragments of his ideal.
At his own door he was met by Anne Mie in tears.
"She has gone," murmured the young girl. "I feel as if I had murderedher."
"Gone? Who? Where?" queried Deroulede rapidly, an icy feeling of terrorgripping him by the heart-strings.
"Juliette has gone," replied Anne Mie; "those awful brutes took heraway."
"When?"
"Directly after you left. That man Merlin found some ashes and scraps ofpaper in her room ..."
"Ashes?"
"Yes; and a torn letter-case."
"Great God!"
"She said that they were love letters, which she had been burning forfear you should see them."
"She said so? Anne Mie, Anne Mie, are you quite sure?"
It was all so horrible, and he did not quite understand it all; hisbrain, which was usually so keen and so active, refused him service atthis terrible juncture.
"Yes; I am quite sure," continued Anne Mie, in the midst of her tears."And oh! that awful Merlin said some dastardly things. But she persistedin her story, that she had--another lover. Oh, Paul, I am sure it is nottrue. I hated her because--because--you loved her so, and I mistrustedher, but I cannot believe that she was quite as base as that."
"No, no, child," he said in a toneless, miserable voice; "she was not sobase as that. Tell me more of what she said."
"She said very little else. But Merlin asked her whether she haddenounced you so as to get you out of the way. He hinted that--that ..."
"That I was her lover too?"
"Yes," murmured Anne Mie.
She hardly liked to look at him; the strong face had become hard and setin its misery.
"And she allowed them to say all this?" he asked at last.
"Yes. And she followed them without a murmur, as Merlin said she wouldhave to answer before the Committee of Public Safety, for having fooledthe representatives of the people."
"She'll answer for it with her life," murmured Deroulede. "And withmine!" he added half audibly.
Anne Mie did not hear him; her pathetic little soul was filled with agreat, an overwhelming pity of Juliette and for Paul.
"Before they took her away," she said, placing her thin,delicate-looking hands on his arm. "I ran to her, and bade her farewell.The soldiers pushed me roughly aside; but I contrived to kiss her--andthen she whispered a few words to me."
"Yes? What were they?"
"'It was an oath,' she said. 'I swore it to my father and to my deadbrother. Tell him,'" repeated Anne Mie slowly.
An oath!
Now he understood, and oh! how he pitied her. How terribly she must havesuffered in her poor, harassed soul when her noble, upright naturefought against this hideous treachery.
That she was true and brave in herself, of that Deroulede had no doubt.And now this awful sin upon her conscience, which must be causing herendless misery.
And, alas! the atonement would never free her from the load ofself-condemnation. She had elected to pay with her life for her treasonagainst him and his family. She would be arraigned before a tribunalwhich would inevitably condemn her. Oh! the pity of it all!
One moment's passionate emotion, a lifelong superstition and mistakensense of duty, and now this endless misery, this terrible atonement of awrong that could never be undone.
And she had never loved him!
That was the true, the only sting which he knew now; it rankled morethan her sin, more than her falsehood, more than the shattering of hisideal.
With a passionate desire for his safety, she had sacrificed herself inorder to atone for the material evil which she had done.
But there was the wreck of his hopes and of his dreams!
Never until now, when he had irretrievably lost her, did Deroulederealise how great had been his hopes; how he had watched day after dayfor a look in her eyes, a word from her lips, to show him that she too--his unattainable saint--would one day come to earth, and respond tohis love.
And now and then, when her beautiful face lighted up at sight of him,when she smiled a greeting to him on his return from his work, when shelooked with pride and admiration on him from the public bench in theassemblies of the Convention--then he had begun to hope, to think, todream.
And it was all a sham! A mask to hide the terrible conflict that wasraging within her soul, nothing more.
She did not love him, of that he felt convinced. Man like, he did notunderstand to the full that great and wonderful enigma, which haspuzzled the world since primeval times: a woman's heart.
The eternal contradictions which go to make up the complex nature of anemotional woman were quite incomprehensible to him. Juliette hadbetrayed him to serve her own sense of what was just and right, herrevenge and her oath. Therefore she did not love him.
It was logic, sound common-sense, and, aided by his own diffidence wherewomen were concerned, it seemed to him irrefutable.
To a man like Paul Deroulede, a man of thought, of purpose, and ofaction, the idea of being false to the thing loved, of hate and lovebeing interchangeable, was absolutely foreign and unbelievable. He hadnever hated the thing he loved or loved the thing he hated. A man'sfeelings in these respects are so much less complex, so much lesscontradictory.
Would a man betray his friend? No--never. He might betray his enemy, thecreature he abhorred, whose downfall would cause him joy. But hisfriend? The very idea was repugnant, impossible to an upright nature.
Juliette
's ultimate access of generosity in trying to save him, when shewas at last brought face to face with the terrible wrong she hadcommitted, _that_ he put down to one of those noble impulses of which heknew her soul to be fully capable, and even then his own diffidencesuggested that she did it more for the sake of his mother or for AnneMie rather than for him.
Therefore what mattered life to him now? She was lost to him for ever,whether he succeeded in snatching her from the guillotine or not. He hadbut little hope to save her, but he would not owe his life to her.
Anne Mie, seeing him wrapped in his own thoughts, had quietly withdrawn.Her own good sense told her already that Paul Deroulede's first stepwould be to try and get his mother out of danger, and out of thecountry, while there was yet time.
So, without waiting for instructions, she began that same evening topack up her belongings and those of Madame Deroulede.
There was no longer any hatred in her heart against Juliette. Where PaulDeroulede had failed to understand, there Anne Mie had already made aguess. She firmly believed that nothing now could save Juliette fromdeath, and a great feeling of tenderness had crept into her heart, forthe woman whom she had looked upon as an enemy and a rival.
She too had learnt in those brief days the great lesson that revengebelongs to God alone.
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