<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></SPAN>CHAPTER XV</h3>
<p>Detected.</p>
<p>The opening and shutting of the door roused them both from their
dreams.</p>
<p>Anne Mie, pale, trembling, with eyes looking wild and terrified, had
glided into the room.</p>
<p>D�roul�de had sprung to his feet. In a moment he had thrust his own
happiness into the background at sight of the poor child's obvious
suffering. He went quickly towards her, and would have spoken to her,
but she ran past him up to Madame D�roul�de, as if she were beside
herself with some unexplainable terror.</p>
<p>"Anne Mie," he said firmly, "what is it? Have those devils dared ..."</p>
<p>In a moment reality had come rushing back upon him with full force,
and bitter reproaches surged up in his heart against himself, for
having in this moment of selfish joy forgotten those who looked up to
him for help and protection.</p>
<p>He knew the temper of the brutes who had been set upon his track, knew
that low-minded Merlin and his noisome ways, and blamed himself
severely for having left Anne Mie and P�tronelle alone with him even
for a few moments.</p>
<p>But Anne Mie quickly reassured him.</p>
<p>"They have not molested us much," she said, speaking with a visible
effort and enforced calmness. "P�tronelle and I were together, and
they made us open all the cupboards and uncover all the dishes. They
then asked us many questions."</p>
<p>"Questions? Of what kind?" asked D�roul�de.</p>
<p>"About you, Paul," replied Anne Mie, "and about maman, and also about
—about the citizeness, your guest."</p>
<p>D�roul�de looked at her closely, vaguely wondering at the strange
attitude of the child. She was evidently labouring under some strong
excitement, and in her thin, brown little hand she was clutching a
piece of paper.</p>
<p>"Anne Mie! Child," he said very gently, "you seem quite upset—as if
something terrible had happened. What is that paper you are holding,
my dear?"</p>
<p>Anne Mie gazed down upon it. She was obviously making frantic efforts
to maintain her self-possession.</p>
<p>Juliette at first sight of Anne Mie seemed literally to have been
turned to stone. She sat upright, rigid as a statue, her eyes fixed
upon the poor, crippled girl as if upon an inexorable judge, about to
pronounce sentence upon her of life or death.</p>
<p>Instinct, that keen sense of coming danger which Nature sometimes
gives to her elect, had told her that, within the next few seconds,
her doom would be sealed; that Fate would descend upon her, holding
the sword of Nemesis; and it was Anne Mie's tiny, half-shrivelled hand
which had placed that sword into the grasp of Fate.</p>
<p>"What is that paper? Will you let me see it, Anne Mie?" repeated
D�roul�de.</p>
<p>"Citizen Merlin gave it to me just now," began Anne Mie more quietly;
"he seems very wroth at finding nothing compromising against you,
Paul. They were a long time in the kitchen, and now they have gone to
search my room and P�tronelle's; but Merlin—oh! that awful man!—he
seemed like a beast infuriated with his disappointment."</p>
<p>"Yes, yes."</p>
<p>"I don't know what he hoped to get out of me, for I told him that you
never spoke to your mother or to me about your political business, and
that I was not in the habit of listening at the keyholes."</p>
<p>"Yes. And ..."</p>
<p>"Then he began to speak of—of our guest—but, of course, there
again I could tell him nothing. He seemed to be puzzled as to who had
denounced you. He spoke about an anonymous denunciation, which reached
the Public Prosecutor early this morning. It was written on a scrap of
paper, and thrown into the public box, it seems, and ..."</p>
<p>"It is indeed very strange," said D�roul�de, musing over this
extraordinary occurrence, and still more over Anne Mie's strange
excitement in the telling of it. "I never knew I had a hidden enemy. I
wonder if I shall ever find out ..."</p>
<p>"That is just what I said to Citizen Merlin," rejoined Anne Mie.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"That I wondered if you, or—or any of us who love you, will ever
find out who your hidden enemy might be."</p>
<p>"It was a mistake to talk so fully with such a brute, little one."</p>
<p>"I didn't say much, and I thought it wisest to humour him, as he
seemed to wish to talk on that subject."</p>
<p>"Well? And what did he say?"</p>
<p>"He laughed, and asked me if I would very much like to know."</p>
<p>"I hope you said No, Anne Mie?"</p>
<p>"Indeed, indeed, I said Yes," she retorted with sudden energy, her
eyes fixed now upon Juliette, who still sat rigid and silent, watching
every movement of Anne Mie from the moment in which she began to tell
her story.</p>
<p>"Would I not wish to know who is your enemy, Paul—the creature who
was base and treacherous enough to attempt to deliver you into the
hands of those merciless villains? What wrong had you done to anyone?"</p>
<p>"Sh! Hush, Anne Mie! you are too excited," he said, smiling now, in
spite of himself, at the young girl's vehemence over what he thought
was but a trifle—the discovery of his own enemy.</p>
<p>"I am sorry, Paul. How can I help being excited," rejoined Anne Mie
with quaint, pathetic gentleness, "when I speak of such base
treachery, as that which Merlin has suggested?"</p>
<p>"Well? And what did he suggest?"</p>
<p>"He did more than suggest," whispered Anne Mie almost inaudibly; "he
gave me this paper—the anonymous denunciation which reached the
Public Prosecutor this morning—he thought one of us might recognise
the handwriting."</p>
<p>Then she paused, some five steps away from D�roul�de, holding out
towards him the crumpled paper, which up to now she had clutched
determinedly in her hand. D�roul�de was about to take it from her, and
just before he had turned to do so, his eyes lighted on Juliette.</p>
<p>She said nothing, she had merely risen instinctively, and had reached
Anne Mie's side in less than the fraction of a second.</p>
<p>It was all a flash, and there was dead silence in the room, but in
that one-hundredth part of a second, D�roul�de had read guilt in the
face of Juliette.</p>
<p>It was nothing but instinct, a sudden, awful, unexplainable
revelation. Her soul seemed suddenly to stand before him in all its
misery and in all its sin.</p>
<p>It was if the fire from heaven had descended in one terrific crash,
burying beneath its devastating flames his ideals, his happiness, and
his divinity. She was no longer there. His madonna had ceased to be.</p>
<p>There stood before him a beautiful woman, on whom he had lavished all
the pent-up treasures of his love, whom he had succoured, sheltered,
and protected, and who had repaid him thus.</p>
<p>She had forced an entry into his house; she had spied upon him, dogged
him, lied to him. The moment was too sudden, too awful for him to make
even a wild guess at her motives. His entire life, his whole past, the
present, and the future, were all blotted out in this awful dispersal
of his most cherished dream. He had forgotten everything else save her
appalling treachery; how could he even remember that once, long ago,
in fair fight, he had killed her brother?</p>
<p>She did not even try now to hide her guilt.</p>
<p>A look of appeal, touching in its trustfulness, went out to him,
begging him to spare her further shame. Perhaps she felt that love,
such as his, could not be killed in a flash.</p>
<p>His entire nature was full of pity, and to that pity she made a final
appeal, lest she should be humiliated before Madame D�roul�de and Anne
Mie.</p>
<p>And he, still under the spell of those magic moments when he had knelt
at her feet, understood her prayer, and closing his eyes just for one
brief moment in order to shut out for ever that radiant vision of a
pure angel whom he had worshipped, turned quietly to Anne Mie.</p>
<p>"Give me that paper, Anne Mie," he said coldly. "I may perhaps
recognise the handwriting of my most bitter enemy."</p>
<p>"'Tis unnecessary now," replied Anne Mie slowly, still gazing at the
face of Juliette, in which she too had read what she wished to read.</p>
<p>The paper dropped out of her hand.</p>
<p>D�roul�de stooped to pick it up. He unfolded it, smoothed it out, and
then saw that it was blank.</p>
<p>"There is nothing written on this paper," he said mechanically.</p>
<p>"No," rejoined Anne Mie; "no other words save the story of her
treachery."</p>
<p>"What you have done is evil and wicked, Anne Mie."</p>
<p>"Perhaps so; but I had guessed the truth, and I wished to know. God
showed me this way, how to do it, and how to let you know as well."</p>
<p>"The less you speak of God just now, Anne Mie, the better, I think.
Will you attend to maman? she seems faint and ill."</p>
<p>Madame D�roul�de, silent and placid in her arm-chair, had watched the
tragic scene before her, almost like a disinterested spectator. All
her ideas and all her thoughts had been paralysed, since the moment
when the first summons at the front door had warned her of the
imminence of the peril to her son.</p>
<p>The final discovery of Juliette's treachery had left her impassive.
Since her son was in danger, she cared little as to whence that danger
had come.</p>
<p>Obedient to D�roul�de's wish, Anne Mie was attending to the old lady's
comforts. The poor, crippled girl was already feeling the terrible
reaction of her deed.</p>
<p>In her childish mind she had planned this way, in which to bring the
traitor to shame. Anne Mie knew nothing, cared nothing, about the
motives which had actuated Juliette; all she knew was that a terrible
Judas-like deed had been perpetrated against the man, on whom she
herself had lavished her pathetic, hopeless love.</p>
<p>All the pent-up jealousy which had tortured her for the past three
weeks rose up, and goaded her into unmasking her rival.</p>
<p>Never for a moment did she doubt Juliette's guilt. The god of love
may be blind, tradition has so decreed it, but the demon of jealousy
has a hundred eyes, more keen than those of the lynx.</p>
<p>Anne Mie, pushed aside by Merlin's men when they forced their way into
D�roul�de's study, had, nevertheless, followed them to the door. When
the curtains were drawn aside and the room filled with light, she had
seen Juliette enthroned, apparently calm and placid, upon the sofa.</p>
<p>It was instinct, the instinct born of her own rejected passion, which
caused her to read in the beautiful girl's face all that lay hidden
behind the pale, impassive mask. That same second sight made her
understand Merlin's hints and allusions. She caught every inflection
of his voice, heard everything, saw everything.</p>
<p>And in the midst of her anxiety and her terrors for the man she loved,
there was the wild, primitive, intensely human joy at the thought of
bringing that enthroned idol, who had stolen his love, down to earth
at last.</p>
<p>Anne Mie was not clever; she was simple and childish, with no
complexity of passions or devious ways of intellect. It was her
elemental jealousy which suggested the cunning plan for the unmasking
of Juliette. She would make the girl cringe and fear, threaten her
with discovery, and through her very terror shame her before Paul
D�roul�de.</p>
<p>And now it was all done; it had all occurred as she had planned it.
Paul knew that his love had been wasted upon a liar and a traitor, and
Juliette stood pale, humiliated, a veritable wreck of shamed humanity.</p>
<p>Anne Mie had triumphed, and was profoundly, abjectly wretched in her
triumph. Great sobs seemed to tear at her very heart-strings. She had
pulled down Paul's idol from her pedestal, but the one look she had
cast at his face had shown her that she had also wrecked his life.</p>
<p>He seemed almost old now. The earnest, restless gaze had gone from
his eyes; he was staring mutely before him, twisting between nerveless
fingers that blank scrap of paper, which had been the means of
annihilating his dream.</p>
<p>All energy of attitude, all strength of bearing, which were his chief
characteristics, seemed to have gone. There was a look of complete
blankness, of hopelessness in his listless gesture.</p>
<p>"How he loved her!" sighed Anne Mie, as she tenderly wrapped the shawl
round Madame D�roul�de's shoulders.</p>
<p>Juliette had said nothing; it seemed as if her very life had gone out
of her. She was a mere statue now, her mind numb, her heart dead, her
very existence a fragile piece of mechanism. But she was looking at
D�roul�de. That one sense in her had remained alive: her sight.</p>
<p>She looked and looked: and saw every passing sign of mental agony on
his face: the look of recognition of her guilt, the bewilderment at
the appalling crash, and now that hideous deathlike emptiness of his
soul and mind.</p>
<p>Never once did she detect horror or loathing. He had tried to save
her from being further humiliated before his mother, but there was no
hatred or contempt in his eyes, when he realised that she had been
unmasked by a trick.</p>
<p>She looked and looked, for there was no hope in her, not even despair.
There was nothing in her mind, nothing in her soul, but a great
pall-like blank.</p>
<p>Then gradually, as the minutes sped on, she saw the strong soul within
him make a sudden fight against the darkness of his despair: the
movement of the fingers became less listless; the powerful, energetic
figure straightened itself out; remembrance of other matters, other
interests than his own began to lift the overwhelming burden of his
grief.</p>
<p>He remembered the letter-case containing the compromising papers. A
vague wonder arose in him as to Juliette's motives in warding off,
through her concealment of it, the inevitable moment of its discovery
by Merlin.</p>
<p>The thought that her entire being had undergone a change, and that she
now wished to save him, never once entered his mind; if it had, he
would have dismissed it as the outcome of maudlin sentimentality, the
conceit of the fop, who believes his personality to be irresistible.</p>
<p>His own self-torturing humility pointed but to the one conclusion:
that she had fooled him all along; fooled him when she sought his
protection; fooled him when she taught him to love her; fooled him,
above all, at the moment when, subjugated by the intensity of his
passion, he had for one brief second ceased to worship in order to
love.</p>
<p>When the bitter remembrance of that moment of sweetest folly rushed
back to his aching brain, then at last did he look up at her with one
final, agonised look of reproach, so great, so tender, and yet so
final, that Anne Mie, who saw it, felt as if her own heart would break
with the pity of it all.</p>
<p>But Juliette had caught the look too. The tension of her nerves
seemed suddenly to relax. Memory rushed back upon her with tumultuous
intensity. Very gradually her knees gave beneath her, and at last she
knelt down on the floor before him, her golden head bent under the
burden of her guilt and her shame.</p>
<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></SPAN>CHAPTER XVI<br/><br/> Under arrest.</h3>
<p>D�roul�de did not attempt to go to her.</p>
<p>Only presently, when the heavy footsteps of Merlin and his men were
once more heard upon the landing, she quietly rose to her feet.</p>
<p>She had accomplished her act of humiliation and repentance, there
before them all. She looked for the last time upon those whom she had
so deeply wronged, and in her heart spoke an eternal farewell to that
great, and mighty, and holy love which she had called forth and then
had so hopelessly crushed.</p>
<p>Now she was ready for the atonement.</p>
<p>Merlin had already swaggered into the room. The long and arduous
search throughout the house had not improved either his temper or his
personal appearance. He was more covered with grime than he had been
before, and his narrow forehead had almost disappeared beneath the
tangled mass of his ill-kempt hair, which he had perpetually tugged
forward and roughed up in his angry impatience.</p>
<p>One look at his face had already told Juliette what she wished to
know. He had searched her room, and found the fragments of burnt
paper, which she had purposely left in the ash-pan.</p>
<p>How he would act now was the one thing of importance left for Juliette
to ponder over. That she would not escape arrest and condemnation was
at once made clear to her. Merlin's look of sneering contempt, when he
glanced towards her, had told her that.</p>
<p>D�roul�de himself had been conscious of a feeling of intense relief
when the men re-entered the room. The tension had become unendurable.
When he saw his dethroned madonna kneel in humiliation at his feet, an
overwhelming pain had wrenched his very heart-strings.</p>
<p>And yet he could not go to her. The passionate, human nature within
him felt a certain proud exultation at seeing her there.</p>
<p>She was not above him now, she was no longer akin to the angels.</p>
<p>He had given no further thought to his own immediate danger. Vaguely
he guessed that Merlin would find the leather case. Where it was he
could not tell; perhaps Juliette herself had handed it to the
soldiers. She had only hidden it for a few moments, out of impulse
perhaps, fearing lest, at the first instant of its discovery, Merlin
might betray her.</p>
<p>He remembered now those hints and insinuations which had gone out from
the Terrorist to Juliette whilst the search was being conducted in the
study. At the time he had merely looked upon these as a base attempt
at insult, and had tortured himself almost beyond bearing, in the
endeavour to refrain from punishing that evilmouthed creature, who
dared to bandy words with his madonna.</p>
<p>But now he understood, and felt his very soul writhing with shame at
the remembrance of it all.</p>
<p>Oh yes; the return of Merlin and his men, the presence of these grimy,
degraded brutes, was welcome now. He would have wished to crowd in the
entire world, the universe and its population, between him and his
fallen idol.</p>
<p>Merlin's manner towards him had lost nothing of its ironical
benevolence. There was even a touch of obsequiousness apparent in the
ugly face, as the representative of the people approached the popular
Citizen-Deputy.</p>
<p>"Citizen-Deputy," began Merlin, "I have to bring you the welcome news,
that we have found nothing in your house that in any way can cast
suspicion upon your loyalty to the Republic. My orders, however, were
to bring you before the Committee of Public Safety, whether I had
found proofs of your guilt or not. I have found none."</p>
<p>He was watching D�roul�de keenly, hoping even at this eleventh hour to
detect a look or a sign, which would furnish him with the proofs for
which he was seeking. The slightest suggestion of relief on
D�roul�de's part, a sigh of satisfaction, would have been sufficient
at this moment, to convince him and the Committee of Public Safety
that the Citizen-Deputy was guilty after all.</p>
<p>But D�roul�de never moved. He was sufficiently master of himself not
to express either surprise or satisfaction. Yet he felt both—
satisfaction not for his own safety, but because of his mother and
Anne Mie, whom he would immediately send out of the country, out of
all danger; and also because of her, of Juliette Marny, his guest,
who, whatever she may have done against him, had still a claim on his
protection. His feeling of surprise was less keen, and quite
transient. Merlin had not found the letter-case. Juliette, stricken
with tardy remorse perhaps, had succeeded in concealing it. The matter
had practically ceased to interest him. It was equally galling to owe
his betrayal or his ultimate safety to her.</p>
<p>He kissed his mother tenderly, bidding her good-bye, and pressed Anne
Mie's timid little hand warmly between his own. He did what he could
to reassure them, but, for their own sakes, he dared say nothing
before Merlin, as to his plans for their safety.</p>
<p>After that he was ready to follow the soldiers.</p>
<p>As he passed close to Juliette he bowed, and almost inaudibly
whispered:</p>
<p>"Adieu!"</p>
<p>She heard the whisper, but did not respond. Her look alone gave him
the reply to his eternal farewell.</p>
<p>His footsteps and those of his escort were heard echoing down the
staircase, then the hall door to open and shut. Through the open
window came the sound of hoarse cheering as the popular Citizen-Deputy
appeared in the street.</p>
<p>Merlin, with two men beside him, remained under the portico; he told
off the other two to escort D�roul�de as far as the Hall of Justice,
where sat the members of the Committee of Public Safety. The Terrorist
had a vague fear that the Citizen-Deputy would speak to the mob.</p>
<p>An unruly crowd of women had evidently been awaiting his appearance.
The news had quickly spread along the streets that Merlin, Merlin
himself, the ardent, bloodthirsty Jacobin, had made a descent upon
Paul D�roul�de's house, escorted by four soldiers. Such an indignity,
put upon the man they most trusted in the entire assembly of the
Convention, had greatly incensed the crowd. The women jeered at the
soldiers as soon as they appeared, and Merlin dared not actually
forbid D�roul�de to speak.</p>
<p><i>"A la lanterne, vieux cr�tin!"</i> shouted one of the women, thrusting
her fist under Merlin's nose.</p>
<p>"Give the word, Citizen-Deputy," rejoined another, "and we'll break
his ugly face. <i>Nous lui casserons la gueule!</i> "</p>
<p>"<i>A la lanterne! A la lanterne!"</i> </p>
<p>One word from D�roul�de now would have caused an open riot, and in
those days self defence against the mob was construed into enmity
against the people.</p>
<p>Merlin's work, too, was not yet accomplished. He had had no intention
of escorting D�roul�de himself; he had still important business to
transact inside the house which he had just quitted, and had merely
wished to get the Citizen-Deputy well out of the way, before he went
upstairs again.</p>
<p>Moreover, he had expected something of a riot in the streets. The
temper of the people of Paris was at fever heat just now. The hatred
of the populace against a certain class, and against certain
individuals, was only equalled by their enthusiasm in favour of
others.</p>
<p>They had worshipped Marat for his squalor and his vices; they
worshipped Danton for his energy and Robespierre for his calm; they
worshipped D�roul�de for his voice, his gentleness and his pity, for
his care of their children and the eloquence of his speech.</p>
<p>It was that eloquence which Merlin feared now; but he little knew the
type of man he had to deal with.</p>
<p>D�roul�de's influence over the most unruly, the most vicious populace
the history of the world has ever known, was not obtained through
fanning its passions. That popularity, though brilliant, is always
ephemeral. The passions of a mob will invariably turn against those
who have helped to rouse them. Marat did not live to see the waning of
his star; Danton was dragged to the guillotine by those whom he had
taught to look upon that instrument of death as the only possible and
unanswerable political argument; Robespierre succumbed to the orgies
of bloodshed he himself had brought about. But D�roul�de remained
master of the people of Paris for as long as he chose to exert that
mastery. When they listened to him they felt better, nobler, less
hopelessly degraded.</p>
<p>He kept up in their poor, misguided hearts that last flickering sense
of manhood which their bloodthirsty tyrants, under the guise of
Fraternity and Equality, were doing their best to smother.</p>
<p>Even now, when he might have turned the temper of the small crowd
outside his door to his own advantage, he preferred to say nothing; he
even pacified them with a gesture.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Merlin, who all along had meant to return to the house, took his
opportunity now. He allowed D�roul�de and the two men to go on ahead,
and beat a hasty retreat back into the house, followed by the jeers of
the women.</p>
<p><i>"A la lanterne, vieux cr�tin!"</i> 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 realised that their
special favourite, Citizen-Deputy D�roul�de, 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.</p>
<p>This was not to be. The mob of Paris had been taught that it was the
master in the city, and it had learned its lesson well. For the moment
it had chosen to take Paul D�roul�de 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.</p>
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