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Updated: May 31, 2025
From this silent group Ombreval turned his tired eyes to the door and took stock of the two men that had entered. One of these was Captain Juste, the officer in command of the military; the other was a tall man, with a pale face, an aquiline nose, a firm jaw, and eyes that were very stern either of habit or because they now rested upon the man who four years ago had used him so cruelly.
"See?" exclaimed Ombreval; "yonder at last comes the great man we are awaiting the Commissioner of that rabble they call the National Convention. Now we shall know what fate is reserved for us." "But what can they do?" she asked. "It is the fashion to send people of our station to Paris," he replied, "to make a mock of us with an affair they call a trial before they murder us." She sighed.
So marked was the disorder in her countenance when she reached Choisy that even unobservant Ombreval whom continuous years of self-complacency had rendered singularly obtuse could not help but notice it, and fearing, no doubt, that this agitation might in some way concern himself he even went the length of questioning her, his voice sounding the note of his alarm.
In the rear rode La Boulaye, his cloak wrapped about him, his square chin buried in his neck-cloth, and his mind deep in meditation. From a window of the Chateau the lady who was the cause of the young Revolutionist's mental absorption watched the departing soldiers. On either side of her stood Ombreval and her father. "My faith, little one," said Bellecour good-humouredly.
"I have not sold you to the Citoyenne," said La Boulaye, the words being drawn from him by the other's manner. "I am making her a present of you a sort of wedding gift." And his lips smiled, for all that his eyes remained hard. Ombreval made him no answer, but stood looking from the Deputy to Suzanne in some hesitation.
"Take him out," La Boulaye repeated, with a dull bark of contempt. "You had your chance, Citizen-aristocrat." Ombreval set his teeth and clenched his hands. "Canaille!" he snarled, in his fury. "Hold!" Caron called after the departing men. They obeyed, and now this wretched Vicomte, of such unstable spirit dropped all his anger again, as suddenly as he had caught it up.
"True!" she made answer; "but I had to choose between the man it had been arranged I should marry and the man I loved." A flush crimsoned her cheek, and her voice sank almost to a whisper. "And to save the man I love I have delivered up Ombreval." "Suzanne" The name burst from his lips in a shout of wonder and of joy ineffable.
They dared not so much as look at their women-folk, lest they should be unmanned by the sight of those huddled creatures their finery but serving to render them the more pitiable in their sickly affright. In a body the whole thirty of them swept from the room, and with Bellecour at their head and Ombreval somewhere in the rearmost rank, they made their way to the great staircase.
"You may leave the Conciergerie when you please, thought I shall ask you to remain at your lodging in the Rue Nationale until this Ombreval is actually taken. Once he has been brought to Paris, I shall send you your papers that you may leave France, for, much though I shall regret your absence, I think that it will be wiser for you to make your fortune elsewhere after what has passed."
They parted on the very best of terms did these two the aristocrat and the Revolutionary actuated by a mutual esteem tempered in each case with gratitude. When at last Des Cadoux had taken a sympathetic leave of Ombreval and departed, Caron ordered the Vicomte to be brought before him again, and at the same time bade his men make ready for the road.
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