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Madame Lesperon, as became a poetess, saw the loveliness of Clemenceau's idea of separation in marrying his cousin and expressed a wish to compliment him face-to-face. Césarine was not so sure that he would come to town to escort her home, he was so engrossed in an important project.
And so I left things as they were, and since I offered no denial to the identity that was thrust upon me, as Lesperon I continued to be known to the Vicomte and to his family. Presently he called the old man to my bedside and I heard them talking of my condition. "You think, then, Anatole," he said in the end, "that in three or four days Monsieur de Lesperon may be able to rise?"
Be merciful upon me then; judge me not over-harshly." I paused, and for a moment we were silent. Then suddenly she looked up; her fingers tightened upon mine. "Monsieur de Lesperon," she pleaded, "of what do speak? You are torturing me, monsieur." "Look in my face, Roxalanne. Can you see nothing there of how I am torturing myself?"
That knave had me in his power. He knew being himself outwardly one of us to what extent I was involved in the late rebellion, and I knew enough of him to be assured that if some day he should wish to do me ill, he would never scruple to turn traitor. I am afraid, Monsieur de Lesperon, that it is not for you alone perhaps not for you at all that the soldiers have come, but for me."
Your only hope of saving your head must lie in your truthfully answering our questions, and even then, Monsieur de Lesperon, the hope that we hold out to you is so slight as to be no hope at all." There was a pause, during which the other judges nodded their heads in sage approval of their President's words.
"I am weighed down with shame, my poor Rene, for having so misjudged you." More he would have said in the same strain, but Lesperon cut him short and bade him attend to the issue now before him.
She let three days pass without writing a line, alleging that she had not the heart while her dear uncle was in danger and that her husband knew, of course, where she was piously engaged. The next morning, Madame Lesperon, a regular reader of the newspapers in expectation of the announcement of her poems having at last been commended by the Académie, came up to the sick-room with the Debats.
Her unbound hair of brown fell like a mantle about her shoulders, and this fact it was drew me to notice that she was in her night-rail, and that this room to which I had penetrated was her chamber. "Who are you?" she asked breathlessly, as though in such a pass my identity were a thing that signified. I had almost answered her, as I had answered the troopers at Mirepoix, that I was Lesperon.
"It is not necessary. Since you allow that I may have said I was known by the name, but refuse to recognize the distinction between that and a statement that 'Lesperon' is my name, it would serve no purpose to summon the Captain." The President nodded, and with that the point was dismissed, and he proceeded as calmly as though there never had been any question of my identity.
"Let that be," I answered; "it does not at present concern us. What I desire you to understand, Monsieur de Lesperon, is that if I go to Toulouse alone, when the time comes to proclaim myself, and it is found that I am not Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon in Gascony, they will assume that you are dead, and there will be no count against me.
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