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Updated: June 12, 2025
He had brought the compromising papers here, had no doubt helped the Montorgueils to escape; but while Lucile Clamette and her family were under the eye of Lebel no amount of impudence could force a successful bargaining. It was Chauvelin now who appeared the more keen and the more alert; the Englishman seemed undecided what to do next, remained silent, toying with the pistol.
And yet it was all true. All real. The Clamette children were sitting in front of him, clinging to Lucile, terrified of him even now. The old man was beside him imbecile and not understanding. The boy Etienne was up on the box next to that audacious adventurer, whose broad back appeared to Chauvelin like a rock on which all his hopes and dreams must for ever be shattered.
I do believe," he added, with a vicious snap of his thin lips, "that they would cheat the guillotine of you and, in the end, drag you out of the tumbrils and tear you to pieces limb from limb!" Once more that look of furtive terror crept into the commissary's bloodshot eyes. "Thank the Lord," he muttered, "that we were able to get hold of the wench Clamette!"
"But only momentarily. You can kill me, of course; but if I do not return from this expedition not only safe and sound, but with a certain packet of papers in my hands, my colleague Lebel has instructions to proceed at once against the girl Clamette and the whole family." "I know that well enough," rejoined Sir Percy with a quaint laugh.
You can do it now, M. le Marquis, by saving us all. I will be at the chateau a week from to-day. I entreat you, M. le Marquis, to come to me then and to bring the papers with you; or if you can devise some other means of sending the papers to me, I will obey your behests. I am, M. le Marquis' faithful and devoted servant, LUCILE CLAMETTE." The pen dropped from the unfortunate girl's fingers.
The Clamette family were huddled together happy and free inside the vehicle. After which there was the usual clatter of horses' hoofs, the creaking of wheels, the rattle of chains. Chauvelin saw and heard nothing of that. All that he saw at the last was Sir Percy's slender hand, waving him a last adieu. After which he was left alone with his thoughts. The packet of papers was in his hand.
By its flickering light he deciphered the letter which Henri de Montorgueil had written to Lucile Clamette. "One day before the term you name I myself will place the papers there for you." A sigh of satisfaction, quickly suppressed, came through his thin, colourless lips, and the light of the lanthorn caught the flash of triumph in his pale, inscrutable eyes. Then the light was extinguished.
Lucile Clamette, with the invincible power of her own helplessness, was demanding the surrender of a weapon which had been a safeguard for the Montorgueils all this while. The papers which compromised a number of influential members of the Committee of Public Safety had been the most perfect arms of defence against persecution and spoliation.
Impenetrable darkness swallowed up that slender, mysterious figure again. Six days had gone by since Chauvelin had delivered his cruel "either or" to poor little Lucile Clamette; three since he had found Henri de Montorgueil's reply to the girl's appeal in the hollow of the tree.
But Commissary Lebel just tried to browbeat her. It was not difficult, for in truth she felt frightened enough already, with all this talk of "traitors" and that awful threat of the guillotine. Lucile Clamette, however, would have remained splendidly loyal in spite of all these threats, if it had not been for the children.
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