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It was to him that La Boulaye now repaired intent upon seeking counsel touching a future that wore that morning a singularly gloomy outlook. He found Duhamel's door open, and he stepped across the threshold into the chief room of the house. But there he paused, and hesitated.
"Citizen Ombreval," said La Boulaye, in that stern, emotionless voice that was becoming characteristic of him, "since you have acquainted yourself with the contents of the letter you stole from the man you murdered, you cannot be in doubt as to my intentions concerning you." The Vicomte reddened with anger.
The letter ended with the usual greetings and Robespierre's signature. La Boulaye swore softly to himself as he folded the epistle. "It seems," he muttered to Charlot, "that I am to turn catch-poll in the service of the Republic." "To a true servant of the Nation," put in the courier, who had overheard him, "all tasks that may tend to the advancement of the Republic should be eagerly undertaken.
Some brandy, too, she found and brought him, and the draught did much to restore him. When they had supped, Garin and the troopers withdrew to the outhouse, leaving La Boulaye in sole possession of the cottage hearth.
An inarticulate grunt came from his thick lips. "Canaille!" he exclaimed, through set teeth. "Can you have presumed so far?" He carried a riding-switch, and he seemed to grasp it now in a manner peculiarly menacing. But La Boulaye was nothing daunted.
"But, name of a name! you are not fit to ride," Garin protested. La Boulaye, however, would listen to no reason. With the recovery of his faculties came the consideration of how miserably Suzanne had duped him, and of how she had dealt with him when he had overtaken her. He burned now to be avenged, and at all costs he would ride after and recapture her.
Now see to my valise, and on my return perhaps I'll tell you where I am going, and put your fidelity to the test." "And you will take me with you?" "Why, yes," La Boulaye promised him, "unless you should prefer to remain in Paris." With that he got away and leaving the house, he walked briskly up the street, round the corner, and on until he stood once more before Duplay's.
And with that he flung her roughly from him. A second she staggered, then, recovering her balance and without an instant's hesitation, she sped to the door. Imagining her intent to be to lock him in La Boulaye sprang after her. But it seemed that his mind had been more swift to fasten upon the wiser course than had hers. Instead, she snatched the key and closed the door on the inside.
The troubles she has lately seen have turned her head never a difficult matter with a woman. She talks as if she had been reading Rousseau on the 'Right of man'. To propose to endanger our lives for the sake of that scum, La Boulaye! Ciel! It passes belief." But it was in vain that he was sullen and resentful.
Had she interfered she must have seemed to sympathise, and thus the lesson might have suffered in salutariness. And yet Caron La Boulaye was a man of most excellent exterior, and, when passion had roused him out of his restraint and awkwardness, of most ardent and eloquent address.
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