Chapter III: The Englishman

These words of Rousseau read before the open bookcase, suggestive as they were of voices from the past still echoing through his memory, had no meaning for him. They kindled no spark in the dead embers of his conscience to reveal the truth. And yet it was a warning from heaven--a moment of grave and vital import in the life of this man, who, had he not been blinded by an insane ambition, might have recognised in the passing stranger a messenger of Fate.

For the voice which had distracted him from his work was the voice of Clarisse, and the young apprentice who had just left him was his son.

The outcast child, now grown to manhood, had been within touch of his own father, but unseen by him. No mysterious affinity had drawn them together, though the voice had vaguely troubled him as he returned to his work.

The young man on leaving _l'Ermitage_ took the path that led to the forest. He was a fine, stoutly built lad, with a brisk lively manner, strong and supple, revealing in spite of his workman's garb an air of good breeding which might have perhaps betrayed his origin to a keen observer. His hair was dark brown, his blue eyes looked out from the sunburnt and weather-beaten face with an expression of extreme sweetness, and his full lips smiled under a downy moustache. He walked with rapid strides, a hazel stick in his hand, towards the forest, which he soon reached, threading the paths and bypaths with the assurance of one to whom the deep wood and its intricate labyrinths was familiar. He slackened his pace now and then to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, keeping to the more shady side of the way, for the sun, already high in the heavens, shed its rays in a burning shower through the leaves, scorching the very grass in its intensity. At last, overcome by the heat, he took off his coat and hung it at the end of the stick across his shoulder.

Presently he turned into an avenue of oak saplings through which a green glade was visible, an oasis where refreshing coolness told of the presence of running water. Here he shaded his eyes with his hands to make out a form outlined against the distance, and a smile lit up his face as he recognised the approaching figure. Hastening his steps he called out--

"Thérèse!"

A fresh, clear voice answered--

"Good morning, Olivier! Good morning!" as a young girl came towards him with outstretched hands. She was tall and lithe, of a fair, rosy complexion, and wore a peasant's dress from which the colour had long since faded. She advanced rapidly, now and then replacing with a quick, graceful movement the rebel locks of fair hair that caressed her cheeks, all in disorder from the air and exercise.

"You bad boy! Auntie and I have been quite anxious about you; but where do you come from?"

For only answer the young man kissed her upturned forehead, and allowed her to take the stick at the end of which his coat still hung.

"And where is mamma?" he asked, continuing to walk on.

"Why, here, of course!" called another voice, a woman's also, gay and joyous as the other, but more mellow in tone, and Clarisse's head appeared above the tall grass.

Instantly the young man was in his mother's arms, and seated by her side on the trunk of a fallen chestnut lying parallel with the stream, which in his haste he had cleared at a bound, discarding the assistance of the little bridge of trees of which the young girl was more prudently taking advantage.

"Ah! my poor Olivier! What anxiety you have caused us! Why are you so late? And after being out all night, too?"

"Did you not know that I should not be back?" the young man asked, looking at his mother.

"Yes, but we expected you earlier this morning."

"It does certainly seem as if it had happened on purpose," he said, as he explained to them why he was so late, and he went on to tell them how he had been kept at the last moment by his employer for some pressing work at Saint-Prix, a little village then in full gala, and distant about a league from the forest. The Democratic Society of the district had joined for this occasion with the Montmorency Society, and there were of course masts to put up, a stand to erect, or rather to improvise, for everything was behindhand. Olivier had been told off to fix iron supports to the steps raised for the convenience of the populace. They had worked, he said, till late in the night by candle light, and in the morning, when he was preparing to come home, he had to go to _l'Ermitage_ to open a bookcase, just to oblige the gardener who was such a good fellow, though the tenant...

"Who is he?" interrupted Clarisse, always fearful and uneasy at the thought of her son going to a stranger's house.

"I don't know at all," replied Olivier. "I only know that he didn't even disturb himself to thank me. They have pretty manners, these Republicans; the old aristocracy were at least polite."

But his mother stopped him.

"Oh, hush! Do not speak like that; suppose you were heard!"

And, putting her arms round his neck, as if to shield him from some possible danger, she asked him what news he brought from the workshop.

"Nothing but the same string of horrors at Paris, and it was even said that the number of victims had sensibly increased."

Carried away by his subject, he detailed to the two women scraps of conversation overheard that night at the village of Saint-Prix. As he spoke, Marie Thérèse, now seated near him on the grass, with his coat spread before her, silently smoothed out the creases, and his mother drank in every word with breathless attention.

Nothing was left of the Clarisse of sixteen but the velvet softness of the blue eyes, and the sweet charm of their expression, with all the pristine freshness of a pure soul still mirrored in their depth. The thin, colourless face seemed modelled in deep furrows, and the fair hair was already shot with silver. Though poorly clad in the dress of a peasant, she also might have betrayed her better birth to a practised observer by her white hands, with tapered fingers and delicate wrists, and by the supple grace of her bearing. But who could regard as an aristocrat this poor woman, almost old, sheltering under her maternal wing the stout young workman, with his resolute air and hands blackened at the forge?

She now went under the name of Durand, as did her son and her niece, Marie Thérèse, who passed as the child of her brother-in-law. The young girl was, in reality, the daughter of her own brother, the young student of the College of Navarre, who had been killed the preceding year in Vendée, fighting in the ranks of the Chouans, in the Royalist cause. Clarisse's husband also met his fate at one of these sanguinary combats, for he was so dangerously wounded that a few days after he had been secretly conveyed to London he died in great agony.

For Clarisse had been married, and was now a widow.

And her past: it could be written in a page--a little page; yet in writing it her hand would have trembled at every line. Deserted by her betrayer, receiving no reply to her letters, she realised, when too late, his cold egoism and ambition. She had been separated from her child, who was born in the retirement of a little village of Dauphiné, whither her father had taken her, and had been immediately confided to the care of peasants, where she was allowed to visit him once a fortnight, subject to a thousand precautions imposed by Monsieur de Pontivy.

And yet, with all this weight of sadness, Clarisse retained her native grace. Misfortune had but added charm to her delicate and melancholy beauty.

It sometimes happened, though very seldom, that she was obliged to accompany her father into society. On one of these rare occasions she attracted the notice of a young captain of the Queen's Guards, Monsieur de Mauluçon, who sought her society assiduously, fell in love with her, and asked Monsieur de Pontivy for her hand.

"Your offer does us much honour," the Councillor had replied, "but I should wish you to see Mademoiselle de Pontivy herself, before renewing your request to me."

And Monsieur de Pontivy notified the fact to Clarisse the same evening with characteristic formality:

"Monsieur de Mauluçon," he said, "whose affection, it appears, you have won, has done me the honour of asking for your hand. I gave him to understand that you alone would dispose of it. He will be here to-morrow afternoon to confer with you. I do not know if he pleases you, but this I know, that if you wish to accept his offer you must lay before him the story of your past. And I need not tell you that if, after this, he persists in making you his wife, you can rely on my consent."

"It shall be as you wish, father," Clarisse answered.

That open nature, which was her most touching trait, made her father's attitude seem quite natural. She did not wait to think that Monsieur de Pontivy could have spared her the shame of this avowal by making it himself, for the fault of another is more easily confessed than our own. Clarisse only felt that, having inflicted a wrong on her father, she was in duty bound to expiate it. And, in truth, it did not cost her so much to make the confession to Monsieur de Mauluçon as it would to have broken it to any other, for he had from the first inspired her with unbounded confidence. She had read a manly generosity in the kindly expression of his frank, open face. She would never have dreamt of becoming his wife, but since he had offered himself why not accept the proffered support of so strong an arm? She well knew in her lonely existence that her father would never be the loving friend and protector that, in the utter weakness of her betrayed and blighted womanhood, she had yearned for through so many long days!

But her child, her little Olivier, would he be an obstacle? At the thought her eyes filled with tears. What did it matter? She would only love him the more, the angel, and suffering would but bind them closer together! However, it was now to be decided, and both their destinies would be sealed, for she well knew that if Monsieur de Mauluçon drew back after her confession, all prospects of marriage would be over, for never again could she so humiliate herself, though she could bring herself to it now, for she had read a deep and tender sympathy in her lover's eyes. And, after all, what mattered it if she were not his wife? She would at least remain worthy of his pity, for he could not despise her. Her confession would create a tie between them which he would perhaps remember later on, when her little Olivier engaged in the battle of life.

When Monsieur de Mauluçon came again to her, innocent of all suspicion, he found her grave and deeply moved. In a few brief words she laid bare to him the history of her past, and he was too high-souled, too strong and generous, to feel anything but an immense pity for a heart of exquisite sensibility, wrecked by its own confiding impulses, misunderstood, misled, and then forsaken.

He took both her hands in his and pressed them to his lips respectfully.

"And the child," he said; "whose name does he bear?"

"Luc-Olivier. Olivier is my father's Christian name."

"But he must have a name! We will give him ours. Mauluçon is as good as Pontivy."

"How can that be?" Clarisse answered, thinking she must be dreaming. "Do you mean you will adopt my child? ... Oh! Monsieur! ... Monsieur!..." and she stammered incoherent words of gratitude, struggling with an emotion which seemed to strangle her.

"I also have a Christian name"--and he bent low, whispering softly in her ear--"my name is Maurice."

She turned towards him with a wan smile, and as he stooped to kiss his affianced bride she melted into tears.

The child was just two years old. The young couple took him with them in their travels. They then established themselves at Pontivy, near the grandfather, who had softened towards his daughter since her marriage, partly won by the baby charm of his grandchild. Their visits to Paris became less frequent, for Monsieur de Mauluçon, in order better to enjoy his home life, obtained an unlimited leave of absence. He now devoted himself to Olivier's education, who was growing up a bright, frank, and affectionate boy. Except Monsieur de Pontivy and Clarisse's brother Jacques, no one but themselves knew the story of his birth. Jacques de Pontivy, recently married, had kept it even from his wife, who died, however, some months after giving birth to a baby girl, whom Clarisse now loved as much as her own Olivier.

Life seemed to smile at last upon the poor woman, when the Revolution broke out. Jacques de Pontivy, who had intended to succeed his father in Parliament, seeing the Royal Family menaced, entered the army, which Monsieur de Mauluçon had also rejoined. Both endeavoured several times to give open proof of their loyal sentiments. They covered the flight of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and were nearly taken at the arrest of the King and Queen on their way to Varennes, and the next year they were obliged to fly from France, and both sought refuge in England, resolved to serve the Royalist cause with all their energy and devotion to the last.

Clarisse, who had remained at Paris with her husband during those stormy times, now rejoined her father at the Château de Pontivy, with Olivier and little Marie Thérèse.

Monsieur de Pontivy, whose health was fast failing, was struck to the heart by the rapid march of events and the sudden collapse of all his most cherished surroundings.

"There is nothing left but to die," he would say sometimes, looking on with indifference at the vain attempts of his son and son-in-law, whose firm faith and enthusiasm he no longer understood, tired and disgusted as he was with everything.

Another tie which bound Clarisse to France was the charge of the two children. Almost grown up now, they were still too young to be exposed to the danger of travelling in such uncertain times, when the frontiers were scarcely guarded, and France was committed to a course which had estranged her from the nations of Europe.

But when Clarisse heard that Monsieur de Mauluçon and her brother were on the eve of leaving London for Southampton to rejoin the royal army in Vendée, she hesitated no longer.

Confiding the children to their grandfather's care, she left Pontivy, and arrived in London, to find her husband and brother at the house of a mutual friend, Benjamin Vaughan, whose acquaintance they had made at the American Embassy in Paris, at a reception on the anniversary of the United States Independence, and with whom they had become intimate.

But Clarisse had hardly rejoined her husband, when a letter reached her from Pontivy telling her that if she wished to hear her father's last words she must come at once. She returned to France almost beside herself with grief, giving her whole soul to her husband in a parting kiss.

It was to be their last.

Misfortune followed misfortune with astounding rapidity. Monsieur de Mauluçon and Jacques de Pontivy soon landed at Saint-Paire, and joined the Vendean army. At the first encounter Jacques was killed by a Republican bullet, and Monsieur de Mauluçon mortally wounded. He was secretly conveyed to London with other wounded royalists, and in spite of the fraternal welcome and care he found under the roof of the faithful friend who had always received them with open arms, he died there of his wounds. Clarisse learnt her double bereavement at the time when her father was breathing his last.

Thus she became a widow and an orphan in that brief space of time.

Prostrated by this double blow, she was for some time at death's door. When she came to herself after a delirium which lasted nearly a week, she saw her children--for Marie Thérèse, now doubly orphaned, was more her child than ever--seated at her bedside awaiting in unspeakable anxiety her return to consciousness. She drew them to her, and covered them with kisses.

"Console yourselves," she said, "I shall live, since you are here."

At this moment a man advanced smilingly towards her, his eyes glistening with tears of joy.

"Leonard!" she said, "you here?"

It was an old servant of Monsieur de Pontivy, who had come in all haste from Montmorency, where he lived, to attend the funeral of his late master.

"Ah!" he cried, "Madame can rest assured Leonard will not leave her till she is herself again."

"Then I shall remain ill as long as possible," she replied laughing, and she held out her hands to him.

Her convalescence was short, and as soon as she was on her feet again she began to think of the future. But Leonard had already thought of this. "You cannot remain here," he said. "Your name, your connections, your fortune--everything denounces you, and exposes you to the ill-treatment of so-called patriots. You must leave Pontivy."

"Go? But where?" asked Clarisse, "Abroad? I have already thought of that, but how can I reach the frontier with my young people without passport, and without guide?"

"The surest way to find shelter and safety is to remain in France," Leonard answered. "Listen to my plans. I have a cottage hidden among the trees in a little hollow of the forest of Montmorency. The place is lonely and little frequented. You can take it in a borrowed name as my tenant. An honest couple, well known to me, a gardener and his wife, will assist in the house, and in the cultivation of the little plot of ground. To avert suspicion, you can place your son with me as apprentice. I am one of the most influential members of the Democratic Society of Montmorency. My patronage is therefore a guarantee of your Republican principles. Olivier will learn a trade, and remain under your care, for he can return home every night to dinner, and thus, dear lady, we will await better times."

Clarisse consented joyfully, and in eight days the little family were installed in the cottage of the forest, secure and safe, in a narrow valley thickly planted with trees, whose bushy branches formed a second roof over their humble dwelling. Fourteen months Clarisse lived there unnoticed, hearing only of the events happening at Paris from the harrowing accounts of the guillotine and _noyades_ which her son brought from the workshop, peopling the sleep of the two women with fearful dreams.

When! oh, when! would they emerge from that obscurity? When would the trumpet-call of deliverance sound for France! Clarisse dared not think. She trembled every instant for her own and her children's safety; for Olivier above all, who already took a too lively interest in the conversations of the workshop, and in popular manifestations. Clarisse did not acknowledge it that morning when she met her son, but she had not slept all night, although she had been aware that he would not return. So when the household duties were over she had come long before the time fixed, to wait for him, as she often did, in that green glade which opened on to the path he was wont to take. When she saw him in the distance she used to beckon to him, anticipating the joy of reunion; all a mother's tenderness smiling in her eyes and on her lips.

Clarisse now hoped that, having been out all night, Olivier would not assist at the _fête_. But she was mistaken, for he took his coat from Marie Thérèse and prepared to go. "What! you are not going to spend the day with us?"

"Now!" replied Olivier coaxingly. "You don't really mean it. And what about the _fête_? You know well my absence would be noticed. All the youth of Montmorency will be there. But I promise you to return for supper. At all events, I have an hour before me. Let us have a crust and some wine."

Clarisse rose from her seat, and Marie Thérèse helped the lad on with his coat; then all three went in the direction of the little bridge, but Olivier retraced his steps directly. He had forgotten his stick. Stooping to pick it up, he heard some one near him softly asking the way, and looking up, he found himself in the presence of a stranger, who pointed to a signpost knocked down by the wind, and from which the writing was defaced.

"Which of these cross-roads leads to La Chèvre?" he asked.

"This one," Olivier answered.

The stranger thanked him, but at the sound of his voice, Clarisse, who had been listening, turned, and as she came nearer she gave a cry of joy.

"Is it possible! You here, Vaughan!" and she came towards him with outstretched hands.

The man's face lighted up with joy as he turned to greet her:

"Madame de Mauluçon!"

"Hush!" she said, then lowering her voice, she introduced the two young people, who, surprised at first, smiled and shook hands with this friend of their family, whose name they had so often heard at Pontivy and Paris. In a few words Clarisse explained to the newcomer their circumstances, pointing out the peasant's cottage hidden among the trees, where they lived away from the outside world. As she spoke her voice trembled, and she could with difficulty restrain her tears, for the man before her had held her dying husband in his arms. It was he who had heard his last words, closed his eyes, and sent Clarisse the terrible news. She longed to question him, but was restrained by the presence of the children. So when Marie Thérèse, who with a woman's instinct felt they had sad and serious things to say to each other, asked if they might leave them, Clarisse thanked her with an eloquent look.

"That is right, children," she said, "go on; we will rejoin you presently."

Alone with Vaughan, her eyes filled with tears; she overwhelmed him with questions, which he answered with exquisite delicacy, softening every painful detail. Clothing his words considerately in a mist of generalities, he guided the conversation with infinite tact, avoiding some points, putting others in his turn, and finally he spoke of the agreeable impression that Olivier and Marie Thérèse had produced on him.

"What a pretty couple they would make!" he said; "but I suppose you have already destined them for each other!"

Now she could smile. He continued--

"Oh! I saw that at once. I congratulate you. And when is the wedding-day?"

Alas, how could she know? Under this abominable Government, marriage in the church had been abolished, and were they even to satisfy themselves with a civil contract the mayor would demand their birth certificates. These were no longer in her possession, even had she wished to produce them. And where were they?

"I have them," replied Vaughan.

She looked at him in astonishment.

He then explained to her how he had found them among a bundle of papers which her husband had been sorting, in order to burn the most compromising, when death overtook him. He--Vaughan, the confidant of his last moments--had completed this task. Among the letters, acts, and accounts, relating chiefly to politics and the different movements of the Chouans and the emigrants, he had found several family documents, some insignificant, others of more importance. These he had laid aside for Clarisse's perusal.

"I will now make a confession," he continued, "which must be made sooner or later."

He stopped embarrassed, and then, as if suddenly resolved, added--

"The work of classification has put me in possession of a family secret. Among the papers which I have to return to you are the birth and baptismal certificates of Olivier."

Clarisse looked at him anxiously. He continued after a pause--

"In glancing over these I perceived that both were dated 1775, that is, two years before your marriage."

Again he paused as if fearing to have said too much.

"And what conclusion did you draw from this?" she asked, resolved to hear the worst.

"That by your marriage with Monsieur de Mauluçon Olivier was then made legitimate."

She recoiled, pale and terrified. Never had such a possibility crossed her mind: her husband, the soul of loyalty and honour, he to be suspected!

"You are mistaken," she said, and added, now quite calm and self-possessed--

"Olivier bears the name of Monsieur de Mauluçon, but he is not his son ... he is mine."

Vaughan made a gesture as if to prevent her continuing. He knew too much now. Deeply affected and embarrassed, he murmured a confused apology, overcome with admiration before this woman, who so frankly confessed her shame rather than let suspicion rest for a moment on a husband whose memory she revered. She led her companion to the trunk on which she had been sitting with her son, and asking him to listen to her story, she told of her youthful folly, her isolated life, her fall, and the cowardly desertion of the young secretary, whose name, however, she concealed; then of the noble generosity of Monsieur de Mauluçon, who had effaced the past by adopting as his own her son.

"Olivier knows nothing, of course?" asked Vaughan.

"Absolutely nothing. He thinks he is Monsieur de Mauluçon's son."

Vaughan took both her hands in his.

"You have suffered much," he said. "May the rest of your years be years of joy and happiness!"

"God grant it!" she answered. "But it is hardly to be hoped in such fearful times of trouble and uncertainty."

He did not reply at once, but seemed preoccupied. Then he said suddenly, as if continuing his thoughts aloud--

"Why don't you come with me to England?"

"Are you returning, then?"

"Yes, in a few days."

She gave a little cry of joy, then added regretfully--

"It is useless to think of it. There is always that question of passport in the way."

Vaughan reassured her.

"I can arrange all that for you," he said.

She looked at him in astonishment, wondering how such a thing could be possible to him, a foreigner. Then suddenly struck by the recollection that she had selfishly kept him occupied with her affairs all the time, she hastened to ask him what had brought him to France. Perhaps she was detaining him? And she begged him to forgive her want of thought.

"You need not make any excuse," he said, smiling; "it would not have interested you, for my presence here is due to politics. It must astonish you that I should come to France when our countries are at war; but, be assured, I am well protected."

And Vaughan explained to her how he had been sent by an influential member of the House of Commons to confer with the man who was looked upon as the most powerful, the master, in fact, of the Republic--Robespierre.

At the mention of this name Clarisse drew back terrified.

Vaughan evinced no particular surprise, for that name produced the same effect on every woman. Was not Robespierre, indeed, the personification of that bloodthirsty Government in whose iron grip France was then writhing in agony?

He traced a striking portrait of the Incorruptible, from the intricacies of his subtle politics to the fierce and stubborn ambition capable of anything to attain its end. Clarisse listened, spell-bound and trembling.

Vaughan, judging the man from a political standpoint, estimated him at his true value. His character, mediocre at the best, was exaggerated in England. The Whig party had commissioned Vaughan to propose to Robespierre an arrangement which, if accepted, would most likely change the face of things. But would he accept? Vaughan doubted it, for the arrangement, though in one way flattering to the self-love and pride of the Incorruptible, would at the same time diminish his importance, and set a curb on his ambition, which, as Vaughan well knew, with all the pretensions of the man to simplicity and republican austerity, was all-absorbing and unbounded.

Seeing Clarisse so attentive, Vaughan continued to paint Robespierre at home in the patriarchal circle of the Duplay family in the Rue Saint Honoré, where he occupied a modest apartment between that of the old couple and their younger son, as whose tutor he was acting until the time came for his marriage with Cornelia, Duplay's youngest daughter, to whom, as it seemed, he was devotedly attached.

Clarisse, her eyes fixed on Vaughan, drank in every word. The Englishman went on, giving a precise and detailed account of Duplay's home--a home guarded by the wife, who watched the door in real bull-dog fashion, for it was the centre of mistrust and suspicion. Yes, Robespierre was well guarded. He, Vaughan, even with an introduction as Pitt's agent, had not been able to see him. He had only succeeded after many difficulties in obtaining an interview in the forest, where he was to confer with him in secret, until joined by the Duplay family. Constantly beset by the fear of the Committee of Public Safety, who watched his every movement, he had arranged for a picnic in the glades, to avert suspicion from this forest interview.

Clarisse, pale and trembling, made a great effort to steady her voice, and asked--

"Is he coming here?"

"Why, yes!" replied Vaughan; "he will be here directly. I am a little early."

Although accustomed to the effect which the name of Robespierre always produced, Vaughan would have been surprised to see Clarisse's emotion had he watched her face, but being preoccupied, he looked at her without taking notice, and continued--

"Yes, the chance is opportune. It will enable me to ask for your passport. He cannot refuse."

Clarisse looked at him, petrified with horror.

"And is it to him that you will go for our passports?" she said.

"Yes," replied Vaughan; "and I am quite sure of obtaining them."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Clarisse. "It cannot be!"

"Why, dear friend?" asked Vaughan, beginning to show signs of astonishment.

"He would want to know my name."

"Well! and I should tell him."

"Oh no; anything but that!" she gasped, bounding forward as if to seal his lips with her hands; then she commenced to walk madly to and fro, no longer able to control her emotion.

Vaughan, more and more mystified, looked at her in amazement. "I cannot understand you," he said.

She gazed at him for a moment, silent and hesitating, then, as if suddenly resolved, she went up to him.

"A word will explain everything. Since you are already possessed of half the secret of my life, it is perhaps better that you should know all."

She paused, and then continued--

"Olivier's father----"

"Well!" interposed Vaughan, now aghast in his turn, scarcely daring to understand her.

"_He_ is Olivier's father!"

And as if broken with the effort, she sank down by the fallen tree-trunk, and sobbed aloud.

"Oh, my poor, poor friend!" exclaimed Vaughan as he bent over her. "I who thought your sufferings were at an end, and in my ignorance added to them by telling you so brutally what I thought of that man!"

"You did not tell me more than I have thought myself," she said. "For a long time, to my contempt for him has been added an absolute abhorrence."

Vaughan here interrupted her with a gesture, intimating silence, his eyes fixed on the distance.

"Is it he?" she said in a trembling whisper.

Vaughan continued to look. He could make out the dim outline of a man's form advancing through the trees.

Clarisse turned to escape, whispering as she went: "Will you come on afterwards to the house?"

"No; to-morrow I will, not to-day. He is sure to have me followed," replied Vaughan, his eyes still fixed on the advancing figure.

Clarisse was about to reply, but Vaughan had recognised Robespierre.

"It is he!" he exclaimed. "Go quickly, he is coming this way," pointing to the path by which Olivier had come.

Clarisse had already crossed the stream and was standing behind a curtain of reeds. She parted them gently and asked, with shaking voice--

"Where is he?"

Even in her fear she remained a woman, divided between a horror of the man and the desire to see him again.

"Ah! I see him... Adieu, till to-morrow...."

The reeds fell back into their places, and Vaughan, left alone, seated himself on the tree-trunk. Robespierre soon came up, walking leisurely, a bunch of blue periwinkles in his hand, his eyes on the grass, seeking others. He stooped here and there to gather and arrange them daintily as a bouquet. He was elegantly dressed, with top-boots, chamois knee-breeches, a tight-fitting redingote of grey stuff, and a waistcoat with revers. A red-haired dog of Danish breed gambolled before him, without fraternising unduly, as if his master's faultless attire somewhat overawed him. At a few steps from the stream Robespierre perceived Vaughan, and came to an abrupt halt. At the same time two men appeared, wearing carmagnole jackets and two-horned hats, and carrying stout cudgels. Vaughan rose to meet the Incorruptible. The dog began to bark.

"Advance no further!" cried Robespierre. "Who are you?"

He made a sign to the two men, who evidently had been acting as scouts, and sent them towards Vaughan, who, though aware of his ways, was still a little taken back at these strange preliminaries. Vaughan gave the two men his note of introduction.

Robespierre took the paper, and drew out of his pocket a gold case, from which he took a pair of blue, silver-rimmed spectacles, which he carefully wiped and put on.

"It's all right," he said, after reading the note; and addressing himself to the two men, he added, "Leave me now, but do not go far, and, above all, keep watch round about."

And Robespierre crossed the bridge, and advanced towards Vaughan, followed by his dog.