CHAPTER XIII. THEN EVERYTHING WAS DARK
The night that Armand St. Just spent tossing about on a hard, narrow bedwas the most miserable, agonising one he had ever passed in his life.A kind of fever ran through him, causing his teeth to chatter and theveins in his temples to throb until he thought that they must burst.
Physically he certainly was ill; the mental strain caused by two greatconflicting passions had attacked his bodily strength, and whilst hisbrain and heart fought their battles together, his aching limbs found norepose.
His love for Jeanne! His loyalty to the man to whom he owed his life,and to whom he had sworn allegiance and implicit obedience!
These superacute feelings seemed to be tearing at his very heartstrings,until he felt that he could no longer lie on the miserable palliassewhich in these squalid lodgings did duty for a bed.
He rose long before daybreak, with tired back and burning eyes, butunconscious of any pain save that which tore at his heart.
The weather, fortunately, was not quite so cold--a sudden and very rapidthaw had set in; and when after a hurried toilet Armand, carrying abundle under his arm, emerged into the street, the mild south windstruck pleasantly on his face.
It was then pitch dark. The street lamps had been extinguished long ago,and the feeble January sun had not yet tinged with pale colour the heavyclouds that hung over the sky.
The streets of the great city were absolutely deserted at this hour. Itlay, peaceful and still, wrapped in its mantle of gloom. A thin rainwas falling, and Armand's feet, as he began to descend the heights ofMontmartre, sank ankle deep in the mud of the road. There was but scantyattempt at pavements in this outlying quarter of the town, and Armandhad much ado to keep his footing on the uneven and intermittent stonesthat did duty for roads in these parts. But this discomfort did nottrouble him just now. One thought--and one alone--was clear in his mind:he must see Jeanne before he left Paris.
He did not pause to think how he could accomplish that at this hour ofthe day. All he knew was that he must obey his chief, and that he mustsee Jeanne. He would see her, explain to her that he must leave Parisimmediately, and beg her to make her preparations quickly, so that shemight meet him as soon as maybe, and accompany him to England straightaway.
He did not feel that he was being disloyal by trying to see Jeanne.He had thrown prudence to the winds, not realising that his imprudencewould and did jeopardise, not only the success of his chief's plans,but also his life and that of his friends. He had before parting fromHastings last night arranged to meet him in the neighbourhood of theNeuilly Gate at seven o'clock; it was only six now. There was plenty oftime for him to rouse the concierge at the house of the Square du Roule,to see Jeanne for a few moments, to slip into Madame Belhomme's kitchen,and there into the labourer's clothes which he was carrying in thebundle under his arm, and to be at the gate at the appointed hour.
The Square du Roule is shut off from the Rue St. Honore, on which itabuts, by tall iron gates, which a few years ago, when the secludedlittle square was a fashionable quarter of the city, used to be keptclosed at night, with a watchman in uniform to intercept midnightprowlers. Now these gates had been rudely torn away from their sockets,the iron had been sold for the benefit of the ever-empty Treasury,and no one cared if the homeless, the starving, or the evil-doer foundshelter under the porticoes of the houses, from whence wealthy oraristocratic owners had long since thought it wise to flee.
No one challenged Armand when he turned into the square, and thoughthe darkness was intense, he made his way fairly straight for the housewhere lodged Mademoiselle Lange.
So far he had been wonderfully lucky. The foolhardiness with which hehad exposed his life and that of his friends by wandering about thestreets of Paris at this hour without any attempt at disguise, thoughcarrying one under his arm, had not met with the untoward fate which itundoubtedly deserved. The darkness of the night and the thin sheet ofrain as it fell had effectually wrapped his progress through the lonelystreets in their beneficent mantle of gloom; the soft mud below haddrowned the echo of his footsteps. If spies were on his track, asJeanne had feared and Blakeney prophesied, he had certainly succeeded inevading them.
He pulled the concierge's bell, and the latch of the outer door,manipulated from within, duly sprang open in response. He entered, andfrom the lodge the concierge's voice emerging, muffled from the depthsof pillows and blankets, challenged him with an oath directed at theunseemliness of the hour.
"Mademoiselle Lange," said Armand boldly, as without hesitation hewalked quickly past the lodge making straight for the stairs.
It seemed to him that from the concierge's room loud vituperationsfollowed him, but he took no notice of these; only a short flight ofstairs and one more door separated him from Jeanne.
He did not pause to think that she would in all probability be still inbed, that he might have some difficulty in rousing Madame Belhomme, thatthe latter might not even care to admit him; nor did he reflect on theglaring imprudence of his actions. He wanted to see Jeanne, and she wasthe other side of that wall.
"He, citizen! Hola! Here! Curse you! Where are you?" came in a gruffvoice to him from below.
He had mounted the stairs, and was now on the landing just outsideJeanne's door. He pulled the bell-handle, and heard the pleasing echo ofthe bell that would presently wake Madame Belhomme and bring her to thedoor.
"Citizen! Hola! Curse you for an aristo! What are you doing there?"
The concierge, a stout, elderly man, wrapped in a blanket, his feetthrust in slippers, and carrying a guttering tallow candle, had appearedupon the landing.
He held the candle up so that its feeble flickering rays fell onArmand's pale face, and on the damp cloak which fell away from hisshoulders.
"What are you doing there?" reiterated the concierge with another oathfrom his prolific vocabulary.
"As you see, citizen," replied Armand politely, "I am ringingMademoiselle Lange's front door bell."
"At this hour of the morning?" queried the man with a sneer.
"I desire to see her."
"Then you have come to the wrong house, citizen," said the conciergewith a rude laugh.
"The wrong house? What do you mean?" stammered Armand, a littlebewildered.
"She is not here--quoi!" retorted the concierge, who now turneddeliberately on his heel. "Go and look for her, citizen; it'll take yousome time to find her."
He shuffled off in the direction of the stairs. Armand was vainly tryingto shake himself free from a sudden, an awful sense of horror.
He gave another vigorous pull at the hell, then with one bound heovertook the concierge, who was preparing to descend the stairs, andgripped him peremptorily by the arm.
"Where is Mademoiselle Lange?" he asked.
His voice sounded quite strange in his own ear; his throat felt parched,and he had to moisten his lips with his tongue before he was able tospeak.
"Arrested," replied the man.
"Arrested? When? Where? How?"
"When--late yesterday evening. Where?--here in her room. How?--by theagents of the Committee of General Security. She and the old woman!Basta! that's all I know. Now I am going back to bed, and you clear outof the house. You are making a disturbance, and I shall be reprimanded.I ask you, is this a decent time for rousing honest patriots out oftheir morning sleep?"
He shook his arm free from Armand's grasp and once more began todescend.
Armand stood on the landing like a man who has been stunned by a blowon the head. His limbs were paralysed. He could not for the moment havemoved or spoken if his life had depended on a sign or on a word. Hisbrain was reeling, and he had to steady himself with his hand againstthe wall or he would have fallen headlong on the floor. He had lived ina whirl of excitement for the past twenty-four hours; his nerves duringthat time had been kept at straining point. Passion, joy, happiness,deadly danger, and moral fights had worn his mental endurancethreadbare; want of proper food and a sleepless night had almost thrown
his physical balance out of gear. This blow came at a moment when he wasleast able to bear it.
Jeanne had been arrested! Jeanne was in the hands of those brutes, whomhe, Armand, had regarded yesterday with insurmountable loathing! Jeannewas in prison--she was arrested--she would be tried, condemned, and allbecause of him!
The thought was so awful that it brought him to the verge of mania. Hewatched as in a dream the form of the concierge shuffling his way downthe oak staircase; his portly figure assumed Gargantuan proportions, thecandle which he carried looked like the dancing flames of hell, throughwhich grinning faces, hideous and contortioned, mocked at him andleered.
Then suddenly everything was dark. The light had disappeared round thebend of the stairs; grinning faces and ghoulish visions vanished; heonly saw Jeanne, his dainty, exquisite Jeanne, in the hands of thosebrutes. He saw her as he had seen a year and a half ago the victims ofthose bloodthirsty wretches being dragged before a tribunal that wasbut a mockery of justice; he heard the quick interrogatory, and theresponses from her perfect lips, that exquisite voice of hers veiled bytones of anguish. He heard the condemnation, the rattle of the tumbrilon the ill-paved streets--saw her there with hands clasped together, hereyes--
Great God! he was really going mad!
Like a wild creature driven forth he started to run down the stairs,past the concierge, who was just entering his lodge, and who now turnedin surly anger to watch this man running away like a lunatic or a fool,out by the front door and into the street. In a moment he was out ofthe little square; then like a hunted hare he still ran down the Rue St.Honore, along its narrow, interminable length. His hat had fallen fromhis head, his hair was wild all round his face, the rain weighted thecloak upon his shoulders; but still he ran.
His feet made no noise on the muddy pavement. He ran on and on, hiselbows pressed to his sides, panting, quivering, intent but upon onething--the goal which he had set himself to reach.
Jeanne was arrested. He did not know where to look for her, but he didknow whither he wanted to go now as swiftly as his legs would carry him.
It was still dark, but Armand St. Just was a born Parisian, and he knewevery inch of this quarter, where he and Marguerite had years ago lived.Down the Rue St. Honore, he had reached the bottom of the interminablylong street at last. He had kept just a sufficiency of reason--or was itmerely blind instinct?--to avoid the places where the night patrolsof the National Guard might be on the watch. He avoided the Place duCarrousel, also the quay, and struck sharply to his right until hereached the facade of St. Germain l'Auxerrois.
Another effort; round the corner, and there was the house at last.He was like the hunted creature now that has run to earth. Up the twoflights of stone stairs, and then the pull at the bell; a moment oftense anxiety, whilst panting, gasping, almost choked with the sustainedeffort and the strain of the past half-hour, he leaned against the wall,striving not to fall.
Then the well-known firm step across the rooms beyond, the open door,the hand upon his shoulder.
After that he remembered nothing more.