The Complete Short Stories of Wilkie Collins. Уилки Коллинз
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was too late; she had broken from him, and in the recklessness of terror, had seized her husband by the arm.
“Save him!” she cried. “Save him, by all you hold dearest in the world! You are that man’s superior, Charles — order him from the room!”
Danville roughly shook her hand off his arm.
“Lomaque is doing his duty. Yes,” he added, with a glance of malicious triumph at Trudaine, “yes, doing his duty. Look at me as you please — your looks won’t move me. I denounced you! I admit it — I glory in it! I have rid myself of an enemy, and the State of a bad citizen. Remember your secret visits to the house in the Rue de Clery!”
His wife uttered a cry of horror. She seized his arm again with both hands — frail, trembling hands — that seemed suddenly nerved with all the strength of a man’s.
“Come here — come here! I must and will speak to you!”
She dragged him by main force a few paces back, toward an unoccupied corner of the room. With deathly cheeks and wild eyes she raised herself on tiptoe, and put her lips to her husband’s ear. At that instant Trudaine called to her:
“Rose, if you speak I am lost!”
She stopped at the sound of his voice, dropped her hold on her husband’s arm, and faced her brother, shuddering.
“Rose,” he continued, “you have promised, and your promise is sacred. If you prize your honour, if you love me, come here — come here, and be silent.”
He held out his hand. She ran to him; and, laying her head on his bosom, burst into a passion of tears.
Danville turned uneasily toward the police agents. “Remove your prisoner,” he said. “You have done your duty here.”
“Only half of it,” retorted Lomaque, eying him attentively. “Rose Danville — ”
“My wife!” exclaimed the other. “What about my wife?”
“Rose Danville,” continued Lomaque, impassibly, “you are included in the arrest of Louis Trudaine.”
Rose raised her head quickly from her brother’s breast. His firmness had deserted him — he was trembling. She heard him whispering to himself, “Rose, too! Oh, my God! I was not prepared for that.” She heard these words, and dashed the tears from her eyes, and kissed him, saying:
“I am glad of it, Louis. We risked all together — we shall now suffer together. I am glad of it!”
Danville looked incredulously at Lomaque, after the first shock of astonishment was over.
“Impossible!” he exclaimed. “I never denounced my wife. There is some mistake; you have exceeded your orders.”
“Silence!” retorted Lomaque, imperiously. “Silence, citizen, and respect to a decree of the Republic!”
“You blackguard! show me the arrest-order!” said Danville. “Who has dared to denounce my wife?”
“You have!” said Lomaque, turning on him with a grin of contempt. “You — and ‘blackguard’ back in your teeth! You, in denouncing her brother! Aha! we work hard in our office; we don’t waste time in calling names — we make discoveries. If Trudaine is guilty, your wife is implicated in his guilt. We know it; and we arrest her.”
“I resist the arrest,” cried Danville. “I am the authority here. Who opposes me?”
The impassible chief agent made no answer. Some new noise in the street struck his quick ear. He ran to the window and looked out eagerly.
“Who opposes me?” reiterated Danville.
“Hark!” exclaimed Lomaque, raising his hand. “Silence, and listen!”
The heavy, dull tramp of men marching together became audible as he spoke. Voices humming low and in unison the Marseillaise hymn, joined solemnly with the heavy, regular footfalls. Soon the flare of torchlight began to glimmer redder and redder under the dim, starlight sky.
“Do you hear that? Do you see the advancing torchlight?” cried Lomaque, pointing exultingly into the street. “Respect to the national hymn, and to the man who holds in the hollow of his hand the destinies of all France! Hat off, Citizen Danville! Robespierre is in the street. His bodyguard, the Hard-hitters, are lighting him on his way to the Jacobin Club! Who shall oppose you, did you say? Your master and mine; the man whose signature is at the bottom of this order — the man who with a scratch of his pen can send both our heads rolling together into the sack of the guillotine! Shall I call to him as he passes the house? Shall I tell him that Superintendent Danville resists me in making an arrest? Shall I? Shall I?” And in the immensity of his contempt, Lomaque seemed absolutely to rise in stature, as he thrust the arrest order under Danville’s eyes and pointed to the signature with the head of his stick.
Rose looked round in terror, as Lomaque spoke his last words — looked round, and saw her husband recoil before the signature on the arrest order, as if the guillotine itself had suddenly arisen before him. Her brother felt her shrinking back in his arms, and trembled for the preservation of her self-control if the terror and suspense of the arrest lasted any longer.
“Courage, Rose, courage!” he said. “You have behaved nobly; you must not fail now. No, no! Not a word more. Not a word till I am able to think clearly again, and to decide what is best. Courage, love; our lives depend on it. Citizen,” he continued, addressing himself to Lomaque, “proceed with your duty — we are ready.”
The heavy marching footsteps outside were striking louder and louder on the ground; the chanting voices were every moment swelling in volume; the dark street was flaming again with the brightening torchlight, as Lomaque, under pretext of giving Trudaine his hat, came close to him, and, turning his back toward Danville, whispered: “I have not forgotten the eve of the wedding and the bench on the river bank.”
Before Trudaine could answer, he had taken Rose’s cloak and hood from one of his assistants, and was helping her on with it. Danville, still pale and trembling, advanced a step when he saw these preparations for departure, and addressed a word or two to his wife; but he spoke in low tones, and the fast-advancing march of feet and sullen low roar of singing outside drowned his voice. An oath burst from his lips, and he struck his fist, in impotent fury, on a table near him.
“The seals are set on everything in this room and in the bedroom,” said Magloire, approaching Lomaque, who nodded and signed to him to bring up the other police agents at the door.
“Ready,” cried Magloire, coming forward immediately with his men, and raising his voice to make himself heard. “Where to?”
Robespierre and his Hard-hitters were passing the house. The smoke of the torchlight was rolling in at the window; the tramping footsteps struck heavier and heavier on the ground; the low sullen roar of the Marseillaise was swelling to its loudest, as Lomaque referred for a moment to his arrest-order, and then answered:
“To the prison of St. Lazare!”
Chapter III
The head jailer of St. Lazare stood in the outer hall of the prison, two days after the arrest at Trudaine’s lodgings, smoking his morning pipe. Looking toward the courtyard gate, he saw the wicket opened, and a privileged man let in, whom he soon recognised as the chief agent of the second section of Secret Police. “Why, friend Lomaque,” cried the jailer, advancing toward the courtyard, “what brings you here this morning, business or pleasure?”
“Pleasure, this time, citizen. I have an idle hour or two to spare for a walk. I find myself passing the prison, and I can’t resist calling in to see how my friend the head jailer is getting on.” Lomaque spoke in a surprisingly brisk and airy manner.