The Scarlet Pimpernel Series – All 35 Titles in One Edition. Emma Orczy
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the front door. Charles Levet went into the house, closing the door noiselessly. He took off his cloak, and went straight into the sitting-room. It adjoined his wife's bedroom. The double communicating doors were wide open, and he could see the invalid stretched out on her bed, with her thin arms spread outside the coverlet. Her great dark eyes looked agonisingly expectant. Her son Augustin was on his knees beside the bed, murmuring half-audible prayers. As soon as she caught sight of her husband, she guessed that all was over, and that the unforgivable crime had been committed. Old Levet knew that she guessed. He came quickly to the bedside. An ashen-grey hue spread over the dying woman's face and a film gathered over her eyes.
"The doctor," old Levet commanded, speaking to his son.
"Too late," Augustin responded without rising from his knees: "her soul has fled to God!" He turned over a page in his book of devotion and began reciting the Prayers for the Dead.
Levet stooped and kissed his dead wife's forehead. Then he reverently closed her eyes. The shock, even though she had expected it, had killed her. The death of her eldest son had stretched her on a bed of sickness, the death of her King had brought about the end. The horror of the deed the knowledge of the appalling sacrilege had snapped the attenuated thread that held her to life.
Levet broke in, with some impatience, on his son's orisons:
"Where is your sister?" he asked.
"She went out a few moments ago to fetch Pradel. I could see that my mother was passing away, so I sent her."
"She shouldn't have gone out alone at night, in this fog, too...."
"She wasn't alone," the young priest rejoined, "Louis Maurin was with her."
At the mention of the name the old man flared up: "You don't mean to tell me that to-day of all days, that renegade was in my house?"
Augustin gave an indifferent shrug. His father went on with unabated vehemence: "With your mother lying on the point of death, Augustin, you should not have allowed this outrage."
"Communion with the dying," the priest retorted, "was of greater import than political quarrels. Maurin didn't stay long," he went on; "I had to send for Pradel, I wanted him to go. But Blanche insisted on going herself. But what does it all matter, father? In face of what happened to-day what does anything matter in this sinful world?"
Charles Levet remained standing, silent and almost motionless by the bedside of his dead wife. Then he turned abruptly and went through the sitting-room out into the street. Some two hundred metres up the road he came on Blakeney and the priest who were waiting for him. The latter by now was scarcely able to stand; he was leaning heavily against the Englishman's shoulder.
Levet said simply: "My wife is dead," and then added: "Come, Monsieur l'Abbé, you are welcome! And you too, Monsieur le Professeur."
Between them the two men supported the tottering footsteps of the abbé, almost carried him, in fact, as far as the grille. Here the three men came to a halt, and Blakeney said:
"I think Monsieur l'Abbé will be all right now. When he has had some food and a short rest, he will be able to come with me as far as the château. Monsieur le Marquis will look after him the rest of the night and," he added speaking to the priest, "we hope within the next twenty-four hours, Monsieur l'Abbé, to have you well on the way to permanent safety."
"I don't know," the abbé murmured feebly, "how to show my gratitude to you, sir. You and your friends were heroic in dragging me away from that cruel mob. I don't even know who you are — yet you saved my life at risk of your own — why you did it I cannot guess —— "
"Don't try, Monsieur l'Abbé," Blakeney broke in quietly, "and reserve your gratitude for my friend Charles Levet, without whose loyalty my friends and I would have been helpless."
He gave Levet's hand a friendly squeeze and opened the grille for the two men to pass through. He waited a moment or two till they reached the front door, and was on the point of turning to go when he was confronted by two figures which had just emerged out of the fog. One of them was Blanche Levet. Blakeney raised his hat and she exclaimed:
"If it isn't Monsieur le Professor? Why! what are you doing in Choisy, monsieur, at this time of night?"
She turned to her companion and went on still lightly and inconsequently:
"Louis, don't you know Monsieur le Professeur —— "
"D'Arblay," Blakeney put in, as Blanche had paused, not knowing the name of her father's friend, who had always been referred to in the house as Monsieur le Professeur. "No," he continued, turning to the young lawyer, "I have not yet had the honour of meeting Monsieur —— I mean citizen —— '
"Maurin," Blanche broke in, "Louis Maurin, and now you know each other's names, will you both come in and —— "
"Not now, mademoiselle," Blakeney said, "Madame Levet is too ill to —— "
"My mother is dead," Blanche rejoined quietly. "I went to fetch Docteur Pradel, because Augustin wished me to, but I knew then already that she was dead."
She spoke without any emotion. Evidently no great tie of filial love bound her to her sick mother. She murmured a quick "Good night," however. Blakeney held the grille open for her, and she ran swiftly into the house.
The two men waited a moment or two until they heard the door of the house close behind the young girl. Then Maurin said:
"Are you going back to Choisy, citizen?" When Blakeney replied with a curt "Yes!" the lawyer continued: "May I walk with you part of the way? I am going into the town myself."
On the way down the street, Louis Maurin did most of the talking, he spoke of the great event of the day, but did so in a sober, quiet manner. Evidently he did not belong to the Extremist Party, or at any rate did not wish to appear as anything but a moderate and patriotic Republican. Blakeney answered in monosyllables. He knew little, he said, about politics; science, he said, was a hard taskmaster who monopolised all his time. Arrived opposite the Café Tison on the Grand' Place, he was about to take his leave when Maurin insisted that they should drink a Fine together. Blakeney hesitated for a few seconds; then he suddenly made up his mind and he and the young lawyer went into the café together.
Louis Maurin had begun to interest him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Maurin the Lawyer
There was quite a crowd in the café. A number of idlers and quidnuncs had drifted out by now from Paris bringing with them news of the great event, and of the minor happenings that clustered round it. Philipe d'Orléans, now known as Philipe Égalité, Louis Capet's own cousin, had driven in a smart cabriolet to the Place de la Révolution, and watched his kinsman's head fall under the guillotine. "A good patriot, what?" was the universal comment on his attitude. The priest who had been with Capet to the last had mysteriously disappeared at the very moment when, in the Hall of Justice, a decree had been promulgated ordering his arrest. He was, it seems, a dangerous conspirator whom traitors in the pay of Austria had sent to the Temple prison as a substitute for the priest chosen by the Convention to attend on Louis Capet. This news was received with execration. But the priest could not have gone far. The police would soon get him, and he would then pay his second visit to Madame la Guillotine with no chance of paying her a third.
That was the general trend of conversation in the Café Tison: the telling of news and the comments thereon. Louis Maurin and Blakeney had secured a table in a quiet corner of the room; they ordered coffee and Fine, and the lawyer told the waiter to bring him pen, ink and paper. These were set before him. He said a polite "Will you excuse me?" to his vis-à-vis before settling down to write. When he had finished what appeared to be a longish letter, he slipped it into an envelope, closed and addressed it, and then summoned the waiter back. He handed him the letter together with some small money, and said peremptorily:
"There