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Updated: June 10, 2025
"Let that man enter, whoever he is!" cried the general. Lomaque passed Madame Danville on the threshold. She trembled as he brushed by her; then, supporting herself by the wall, followed him a few paces into the room. She looked first at her son after that, at Trudaine after that back again at her son. Something in her presence silenced every one.
Pluck up your spirits, citoyenne! one gets used to everything in this world, even to the guillotine!" While he was speaking and pushing at the same time, Trudaine felt a piece of paper slip quickly between his neck and his cravat. "Courage!" he whispered, pressing his sister's hand, as he saw her shuddering under the assumed brutality of Lomaque's joke.
He bowed his head, murmured something, and gesticulated confusedly with the hand that he was free to use. "Look!" cried the old officer; "look, Berthelin; he denies the man's identity." "Do you hear that?" said the general, appealing to Trudaine. "Have you proofs to confute him? If you have, produce them instantly."
Danville had finished his song, had quitted the harpsichord, and was talking in whispers to his bride; Madame Danville was adding a word to the conversation every now and then; Trudaine was seated apart at the far end of the room, thoughtfully reading a letter which he had taken from his pocket, when an exclamation from Lomaque, who was still engaged with the newspaper, caused all the other occupants of the apartment to suspend their employments and look up.
Monsieur Trudaine, I put your bachelor lodging and your talk to me last night together, and I make out a sum total which is, I think, pretty near the mark. You have refused that Paris appointment, my friend; and I fancy I can guess why." He paused thoughtfully, and shook his head with ominous frowns and bitings of his lips.
Yes," he added, with a glance of malicious triumph at Trudaine, "yes, doing his duty. Look at me as you please your looks won't move me. I denounced you! I admit it I glory in it! I have rid myself of an enemy, and the State of a bad citizen. Remember your secret visits to the house in the Rue de Clery!" His wife uttered a cry of horror.
He gave to Madame la Grande Duchesse an augmentation of her pension of 50,000 livres; one of 8,000 livres to Trudaine: one of 9,000 livres to Chateauneuf; one of 8,000 livres to Bontems, chief valet de chambre of the King; one of 6,000 livres to the Marechal de Montesquieu; one of 3,000 livres to Faucault; and one of 9,000 livres to the widow of the Duc d'Albemarle, secretly remarried to the son of Mahoni.
It is evening. Rose, Trudaine and Lomaque are seated together on the bench that overlooks the windings of the Seine. The old familiar scene spreads before them, beautiful as ever unchanged, as if it was but yesterday since they had all looked on it for the last time. They talk together seriously and in low voices.
At that instant Trudaine called to her: "Rose, if you speak I am lost!" She stopped at the sound of his voice, dropped her hold on her husband's arm, and faced her brother, shuddering. "Rose," he continued, "you have promised, and your promise is sacred. If you prize your honor, if you love me, come here come here, and be silent." He held out his hand.
By the time you are fit to meet your sister again, I shall have had time to say all I wish to her, and shall be waiting at the cottage to tell you the result." He looked at Trudaine, and his eyes seemed to brighten again with something of the old energy and sudden decision of the days when he was a man in office under the Reign of Terror.
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