He well knew that those whom he incited against Merlin now would, once their blood was up, probably turn against him in less than half an hour.
Merlin, who all along had meant to return to the house, took his opportunity now. He allowed Déroulède and the two men to go on ahead, and beat a hasty retreat back into the house, followed by the jeers of the women.
"À la lanterne, vieux, crétin!" they shouted as soon as the hall door was once more closed in their faces. A few of them began hammering against the door with their fists; then they realized that their special favourite, Citizen-Deputy Déroulède, was marching along between two soldiers, as if he were a prisoner. The word went round that he was under arrest, and was being taken to the Hall of Justice--a prisoner.
This was not to be. The mob of Paris had been taught that it was the master of the city, and it had learned its lesson well. For the moment it had chosen to take Paul Déroulède under its special protection, and as a guard of honour to him--the women in ragged kirtles, the men with bare legs and stripped to the waist, the children all yelling, hooting, and shrieking--followed him, to see that none dared harm him.
Chapter XVII
Atonement
Merlin waited a while in the hall, until he heard the noise of the shrieking crowd gradually die away in the distance, then with a grunt of satisfaction he once more mounted the stairs.
All these events outside had occurred during a very few minutes, and Madame Déroulède and Anne Mie had been too anxious as to what was happening in the streets, to take any notice of Juliette.
They had not dared to step out on to the balcony to see what was going on, and, therefore, did not understand what the reopening and shutting of the front door had meant.
The next instant, however, Merlin's heavy, slouching footsteps on the stairs had caused Anne Mie to look round in alarm.
"It is only the soldiers come back for me," said Juliette quietly.
"For you?"
"Yes; they are coming to take me away. I suppose they did not wish to do it in the presence of M. Déroulède, for fear--"
She had no time to say more. Anne Mie was still looking at her in awed and mute surprise, when Merlin entered the room.
In his hand he held a leather case, all torn, and split at one end, and a few tiny scraps of half-charred paper. He walked straight up to Juliette, and roughly thrust the case and papers into her face.
"These are yours?" he said roughly.
"Yes."
"I suppose you know where they were found?"
She nodded quietly in reply.
"What were these papers which you burnt?"
"Love-letters."
"You lie!"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"As you please," she said curtly.
"What were these papers?" he repeated, with a loud obscene oath which, however, had not the power to disturb the young girl's serenity.
"I have told you," she said; "love-letters, which I wished to burn."
"Who was your lover?" he asked.
Then as she did not reply he indicated the street, where cries of "Déroulède! Vive Déroulède!" still echoed from afar.
"Were the letters from him?"
"No."
"You had more than one lover, then?"
He laughed, and a hideous leer seemed further to distort his ugly countenance.
He thrust his face quite close to hers, and she closed her eyes, sick with the horror of this contact with the degraded wretch. Even Anne Mie had uttered a cry of sympathy at sight of this evil-smelling, squalid creature torturing, with his close proximity, the beautiful, refined girl before him.
With a rough gesture he put his clawlike hand under her delicate chin, forcing her to turn round and to look at him. She shuddered at the loathsome touch, but her quietude never forsook her for a moment.
It was into the power of wretches such as this man that she had wilfully delivered the man she loved. This brutish creature's familiarity put the finishing touch to her own degradation, but it gave her the courage to carry through her purpose to the end.
"You had more than one lover, then?" said Merlin, with a laugh which would have pleased the devil himself. "And you wished to send one of them to the guillotine in order to make way for the other? Was that it?"
"Was that it?" he repeated, suddenly seizing one of her wrists, and giving it a savage twist, so that she almost screamed with the pain.
"Yes," she replied firmly.
"Do you know that you brought me here on a fool's errand?" he asked viciously; "that the Citizen-Deputy Déroulède cannot be sent to the guillotine on mere suspicion, eh? Did you know that, when you wrote out that denunciation?"
"No; I did not know."
"You thought we could arrest him on mere suspicion?"
"Yes."
"You knew he was innocent?"
"I knew it."
"Why did you burn your love-letters?"
"I was afraid that they would be found, and would be brought under the notice of the Citizen-Deputy."
"A splendid combination, ma foi!" said Merlin, with an oath, as he turned to the two other women, who sat pale and shrinking in a corner of the room, not understanding what was going on, not knowing what to think or what to believe. They had known nothing of Déroulède's plans for the escape of Marie Antoinette, they didn't know what the letter-case had contained, and yet they both vaguely felt that the beautiful girl, who stood up so calmly before the loathsome Terrorist, was not a wanton, as she tried to make out, but only misguided, mad perhaps--perhaps a martyr.
"Did you know anything of this?" queried Merlin roughly from trembling Anne Mie.
"Nothing," she replied.
"No one knew anything of my private affairs or of my private correspondence," said Juliette coldly; "as you say, it was a splendid combination. I had hoped that it would succeed. But I understand now that Citizen-Deputy Déroulède is a personage of too much importance to be brought to trial on mere suspicion, and my denunciation of him was not based on facts."
"And do you know, my fine aristocrat," sneered Merlin viciously, "that it is not wise either to fool the Committee of Public Safety, or to denounce without cause one of the representatives of the people?"
"I know," she rejoined quietly, "that you, Citizen Merlin, are determined that some one shall pay for this day's blunder. You dare not now attack the Citizen-Deputy, and so you must be content with me."
"Enough of this talk now; I have no time to bandy words with aristos," he said roughly. "Come now, follow the men quietly. Resistance would only aggravate your case."
"I am quite prepared to follow you. May I speak two words to my friends before I go?"
"No."
"I may never be able to speak to them again."
"I have said No, and I mean No. Now then, forward. March! I have wasted too much time already."
Juliette was too proud to insist any further. She had hoped, by one word, to soften Madame Déroulède's and Anne Mie's heart towards her. She did not know whether they believed that miserable lie which she had been telling to Merlin; she only guessed that for the moment they still thought her the betrayer of Paul Déroulède.
But that one word was not to be spoken. She would have to go forth to her certain trial, to her probable death, under the awful cloud, which she herself had brought over her own life.
She turned quietly, and walked towards the door, where the two men already stood at attention.