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His chief duty was to his mother and to Anne Mie, and that was now fully discharged. Then there was old Petronelle. Ever since the arrest of her young mistress the poor old soul had been in a state of mind bordering on frenzy, and no amount of eloquence on Deroulede's part would persuade her to quit Paris without Juliette.
She heard Anne Mie come home, and Deroulede's voice of welcome on the landing. Thas was perhaps the most bitter moment of this awful soul conflict, for it brought to her mind the remembrance of those others who would suffer too, and who were innocent Madame Deroulede and poor, crippled Anne Mie. They had done no wrong, and yet how heavily would they be punished!
And Merlin knew it. Therefore, although he had not given up all hope of finding proofs of Deroulede's treason, although by the latter's attitude he remained quite convinced that such proof did exist, he was already reckoning upon the cat's paw, the sop he would offer to that Cerberus, the Committee of Public Safety, in exchange for his own exculpation in the matter.
A shrug of the shoulders on Deroulede's part had aroused the boy's ire, then a few casual words, and, without further warning, the insult had been hurled and the cards thrown in the older man's face. Deroulede did not move from his seat.
And when one glance in Paul Deroulede's face told her that she was forgiven, her cup of joy at seeing him happy beside his beloved, was unalloyed with any bitterness. It was in the beautiful, rosy dawn of one of the last days of that memorable Fructidor, when Juliette and Paul Deroulede, standing on the deck of the Daydream, saw the shores of France gradually receding from their view.
Chivalrous eh? and innately so, evidently, for the girl was slightly deformed: hardly a hunchback, but weak and unattractive-looking, with melancholy eyes, and a pale, pinched face. It was the thought of that little act of simple chivalry, witnessed the day before, which caused Juliette to provoke the scene which, but for Deroulede's timely interference, might have ended so fatally.
"Then let me tell you, Citizen-Deputy Merlin, that a true patriot would have found those papers in Deroulede's, and not the woman's room; that in the hands of a faithful servant of the Republic those documents would not all have been destroyed, for he would have 'found' one letter addressed to the Widow Capet, which would have proved conclusively that Citizen-Deputy Deroulede was a traitor.
A few discreet exclamations of admiration greeted Deroulede's most successful parry. De Marny was getting more and more excited, the older man more and more sober and reserved. A thoughtless lunge placed the little Vicomte at his opponent's mercy. The next instant he was disarmed, and the seconds were pressing forward to end the conflict.
She had not seen the papers themselves; any one of them might be an absolute proof of Deroulede's guilt; the correspondence might be in his handwriting. If Merlin, furious, baffled, vicious, were to order her to be searched! The horror of the indignity made her shudder, but she would have submitted to that, if thereby she could have saved Deroulede.
"I am quite prepared to follow you. May I speak two words to my friends before I go?" "No." "I may never be able to speak to them again." "I have said No, and I mean No. Now then, forward. March! I have wasted too much time already." Juliette was too proud to insist any further. She had hoped, by one word, to soften Madame Deroulede's and Anne Mie's heart towards her.