M. de Kercadiou gripped his godson’s hand convulsively,
and held it a moment with no word spoken. Then
as they fell away from each other again:
“And now, what will you do, Andre?” he
asked. “Now that you know?”
Andre-Louis stood awhile, considering, then broke
into laughter. The situation had its humours.
He explained them.
“What difference should the knowledge make?
Is filial piety to be called into existence by the
mere announcement of relationship? Am I to risk
my neck through lack of circumspection on behalf of
a mother so very circumspect that she had no intention
of ever revealing herself? The discovery rests
upon the merest chance, upon a fall of the dice of
Fate. Is that to weigh with me?”
“The decision is with you, Andre.”
“Nay, it is beyond me. Decide it who can,
I cannot.”
“You mean that you refuse even now?”
“I mean that I consent. Since I cannot
decide what it is that I should do, it only remains
for me to do what a son should. It is grotesque;
but all life is grotesque.”
“You will never, never regret it.”
“I hope not,” said Andre. “Yet
I think it very likely that I shall. And now
I had better see Rougane again at once, and obtain
from him the other two permits required. Then
perhaps it will be best that I take them to Paris
myself, in the morning. If you will give me a
bed, monsieur, I shall be grateful. I...
I confess that I am hardly in case to do more to-night.”
SANCTUARY
Into the late afternoon of that endless day of horror
with its perpetual alarms, its volleying musketry,
rolling drums, and distant muttering of angry multitudes,
Mme. de Plougastel and Aline sat waiting in that
handsome house in the Rue du Paradis. It was
no longer for Rougane they waited. They realized
that, be the reason what it might — and by now
many reasons must no doubt exist — this friendly
messenger would not return. They waited without
knowing for what. They waited for whatever might
betide.
At one time early in the afternoon the roar of battle
approached them, racing swiftly in their direction,
swelling each moment in volume and in horror.
It was the frenzied clamour of a multitude drunk
with blood and bent on destruction. Near at hand
that fierce wave of humanity checked in its turbulent
progress. Followed blows of pikes upon a door
and imperious calls to open, and thereafter came the
rending of timbers, the shivering of glass, screams
of terror blending with screams of rage, and, running
through these shrill sounds, the deeper diapason of
bestial laughter.
It was a hunt of two wretched Swiss guardsmen seeking
blindly to escape. And they were run to earth
in a house in the neighbourhood, and there cruelly
done to death by that demoniac mob. The thing
accomplished, the hunters, male and female, forming
into a battalion, came swinging down the Rue du Paradis,
chanting the song of Marseilles — a song new
to Paris in those days:
