Lord Tony’s Wife, Baroness Orczy [bill gates best books TXT] 📗

Chauvelin does not let the whole rabble slip through his fingers.”

“If I do,” concluded Chauvelin drily, “you may drag the Loire for my body tomorrow.”

“Oh!” laughed Carrier, “we won’t trouble to do that. Au revoir, citizen Chauvelin,” he added with one of his grandiloquent gestures of dismissal, “I wish you luck at the Rat Mort tonight.”

Jacques Lalouët ushered Chauvelin out. When he was finally left standing alone at the head of the stairs and young Lalouët’s footsteps had ceased to resound across the floors of the rooms beyond, he remained quite still for awhile, his eyes fixed into vacancy, his face set and expressionless; and through his lips there came a long-drawn-out sigh of intense satisfaction.

“And now, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel,” he murmured softly, “once more à nous deux.”

Then he ran swiftly down the stairs and a moment later was once more speeding toward Le Bouffay.

V The Message of Hope I

After Martin-Roget and Chauvelin had left her, Yvonne had sat for a long time motionless, almost unconscious. It seemed as if gradually, hour by hour, minute by minute, her every feeling of courage and of hope were deserting her. Three days now she had been separated from her father⁠—three days she had been under the constant supervision of a woman who had not a single thought of compassion or of mercy for the “aristocrat” whom she hated so bitterly.

At night, curled up on a small bundle of dank straw Yvonne had made vain efforts to snatch a little sleep. Ever since the day when she had been ruthlessly torn away from the protection of her dear milor, she had persistently clung to the belief that he would find the means to come to her, to wrest her from the cruel fate which her pitiless enemies had devised for her. She had clung to that hope throughout that dreary journey from dear England to this abominable city. She had clung to it even whilst her father knelt at her feet in an agony of remorse. She had clung to hope while Martin-Roget alternately coaxed and terrorised her, while her father was dragged away from her, while she endured untold misery, starvation, humiliation at the hands of Louise Adet: but now⁠—quite unaccountably⁠—that hope seemed suddenly to have fled from her, leaving her lonely and inexpressibly desolate. That small, shrunken figure which, wrapped in a dark mantle, had stood in the corner of the room watching her like a serpent watches its prey, had seemed like the forerunner of the fate with which Martin-Roget, gloating over her helplessness, had already threatened her.

She knew, of course, that neither from him, nor from the callous brute who governed Nantes, could she expect the slightest justice or mercy. She had been brought here by Martin-Roget not only to die, but to suffer grievously at his hands in return for a crime for which she personally was in no way responsible. To hope for mercy from him at the eleventh hour were worse than futile. Her already overburdened heart ached at thought of her father: he suffered all that she suffered, and in addition he must be tortured with anxiety for her and with remorse. Sometimes she was afraid that under the stress of desperate soul-agony he might perhaps have been led to suicide. She knew nothing of what had happened to him, where he was, nor whether privations and lack of food or sleep, together with Martin-Roget’s threats, had by now weakened his morale and turned his pride into humiliating submission.

II

A distant tower-clock struck the evening hours one after the other. Yvonne for the past three days had only been vaguely conscious of time. Martin-Roget had spoken of a few hours’ respite only, of the proconsul’s desire to be soon rid of her. Well! this meant no doubt that the morrow would see the end of it all⁠—the end of her life which such a brief while ago seemed so full of delight, of love and of happiness.

The end of her life! She had hardly begun to live and her dear milor had whispered to her such sweet promises of endless vistas of bliss.

Yvonne shivered beneath her thin gown. The northwesterly blast came in cruel gusts through the unglazed window and a vague instinct of self-preservation caused Yvonne to seek shelter in the one corner of the room where the icy draught did not penetrate quite so freely.

Eight, nine and ten struck from the tower-clock far away: she heard these sounds as in a dream. Tired, cold and hungry her vitality at that moment was at its lowest ebb⁠—and, with her back resting against the wall she fell presently into a torpor-like sleep.

Suddenly something roused her, and in an instant she sat up⁠—wide-awake and wide-eyed, every one of her senses conscious and on the alert. Something had roused her⁠—at first she could not say what it was⁠—or remember. Then presently individual sounds detached themselves from the buzzing in her ears. Hitherto the house had always been so still; except on the isolated occasions when Martin-Roget had come to visit her and his heavy tread had caused every loose board in the tumble-down house to creak, it was only Louise Adet’s shuffling footsteps which had roused the dormant echoes, when she crept upstairs either to her own room, or to throw a piece of stale bread to her prisoner.

But now⁠—it was neither Martin-Roget’s heavy footfall nor the shuffling gait of Louise Adet which had roused Yvonne from her trance-like sleep. It was a gentle, soft, creeping step which was slowly, cautiously mounting the stairs. Yvonne crouching against the wall could count every tread⁠—now and then a board creaked⁠—now and then the footsteps halted.

Yvonne, wide-eyed, her heart stirred by a nameless terror was watching the door.

The piece of tallow-candle flickered in the draught. Its feeble light just touched the remote corner of the room. And Yvonne heard those soft, creeping footsteps as they reached the