United States or Anguilla ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then she added under her breath: "You know?" "I know that Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines is fiancee to the citizen- deputy Arnould Fabrice," rejoined the old man quietly, "and that it is Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines who is speaking with me now." "You have known that all along?"
He has the grudging respect of every faction in the National Assembly. Nothing but irrefutable proof would prevail against him and bring him to the guillotine." "Why not get Fabrice and Mlle. de Lucines safely over to England?" "Fabrice would not come. He is not of the stuff that emigres are made of. He is not an aristocrat; he is a republican by conviction, and a demmed honest one at that.
Agnes de Lucines will be my wife within the month, or Arnould Fabrice's head will fall under the guillotine, and you, my interfering friend, may go to the devil, if you please." "That would be but a tame proceeding, citizen, after my visit to you," said the old man, with unruffled sang-froid.
Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines would far sooner cut off her right hand than let yours touch it even for one instant. Neither she nor deputy Fabrice would ever purchase their lives at such a price." "And who are you you mangy old scarecrow?" retorted Heriot, who was getting beside himself with rage, "that you should assert these things?
She was of gentle birth, and as such an object of suspicion to the Government of the Republic and of the Terror; her mother was a hopeless cripple, unable to move: this together with her love for Arnould Fabrice had kept Agnes de Lucines in France these days, even though she was in hourly peril of arrest. "Tell me what has happened," the old man said, unheeding her last anxious query.
"But let me, in my turn, assure you of this, citizen Heriot," he added, "that Mlle. de Lucines will never be your wife, that Arnould Fabrice will not end his valuable life under the guillotine and that you will never be allowed to use against him the cowardly and stolen weapon which you possess."
Well! if he got away to-night Agnes de Lucines would be happy and free from the importunities of that brute Heriot; after that he must persuade her and Fabrice to go to England and to freedom. For the moment his own safety was terribly in jeopardy; one false move one look from those players round the table....Bah! even then !
He would scorn to run away, and Agnes de Lucines would not go without him." "Then what can we do?" "Filch those letters from that brute Heriot," said Blakeney calmly. "House-breaking, you mean!" commented Sir Andrew Ffoulkes dryly. "Petty theft, shall we say?" retorted Sir Percy.
"This is a farce, I presume, citizen," he said when he had recovered something of his composure. "No farce, citizen," replied Lepine calmly. "The money is at your disposal whenever you care to bring the letters to my pitch at the angle of the Rue Dauphine and the Quai des Augustins, where I carry on my business." "Whose money is it? Agnes de Lucines' or did that fool Fabrice send you?"
"Agnes de Lucines is not the only one whom this brute is terrorising," murmured Blakeney once between his teeth; "I marvel that the man ever feels safe, alone in these lodgings, with no one but that weak-kneed Rondeau to protect him. He must have scores of enemies in this city who would gladly put a dagger in his heart or a bullet through his back."
Word Of The Day