The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📗

from limb, it seems. I don’t know just what happened, for I wasn’t there; but he came to my apartment⁠—at midnight⁠—dishevelled⁠—his clothes torn⁠—more dead than alive. I gave him shelter; I tended him. Yes, I!⁠—even whilst Robespierre and his friends were in my house, and I risked my life every moment that Bertrand was under my roof! Chauvelin suspected something then. Oh, I knew it! Those awful pale, deep-set eyes of his seemed to be searching my soul all the time! At which precise moment you came and took Bertrand away, I know not. But Chauvelin knew. He saw⁠—he saw, I tell you! He had not been with us the whole time, but in and out of the apartment on some pretext or other. Then, after the others had left, he came back, accused me of having harboured not only Bertrand, but the Scarlet Pimpernel himself!⁠—swore that I was in league with the English spies and had arranged with them to smuggle my lover out of the house. Then he went away. He did not threaten. You know him as well as I do. Threatening is not his way. But from his look I knew that I was doomed. Luckily I had François. We packed up my few belongings then and there. I left my woman Pepita in charge, and I fled. As for the rest, I swear to you that it all happened just as I told it to milady. You say you do not believe me. Very well! Will you then take me away from this sheltered land, which I have reached after terrible sufferings? Will you send me back to France, and drive me to the arms of a man who but waits to throw me into the tumbril with the next batch of victims for the guillotine? You have the power to do it, of course. You are in England; you are rich, influential, a power in your own country; whilst I am an alien, a political enemy, a refugee, penniless and friendless. You can do with me what you will, of course. But if you do that, milor, my blood will stain your hands forever; and all the good you and your League have ever done in the cause of humanity will be wiped out by this execrable crime.”

She spoke very quietly and with soul-moving earnestness. She was also exquisitely beautiful. Sir Percy Blakeney had been more than human if he had been proof against such an appeal, made by such perfect lips. Nature itself spoke up for Theresia: the softness and stillness of the night; the starlit sky and the light of the moon; the sent of wood violets and of wet earth, and the patter of tiny, mysterious feet in the hedgegrows. And the man whose whole life was consecrated to the relief of suffering humanity and whose ears were forever strained to hear the call of the weak and of the innocent⁠—he could far, far sooner have believed that this beautiful woman was speaking the truth, rather than allow his instinct of suspicion, his keen sense of what was untrustworthy and dangerous, to steel his heart against her appeal.

But whatever his thoughts might be, when she paused, wearied and shaken with sobs which she vainly tried to suppress, he spoke to her quite gently.

“Believe me, dear lady,” he said, “that I had no thought of wronging you when I owned to disbelieving your story. I have seen so many strange things in the course of my chequered career that, in verity, I ought to know by now how unbelievable truth often appears.”

“Had you known me better, milor⁠—” she began.

“Ah, that is just it!” he rejoined quaintly. “I did not know you, Madame. And now, meseems, that Fate has intervened, and that I shall never have the chance of knowing you.”

“How is that?” she asked.

But to this he gave no immediate answer, suggested irrelevantly:

“Shall we walk on? It is getting late.”

She gave a little cry, as if startled out of a dream, then started to walk by his side with her long, easy stride, so full of sinuous grave. They went on in silence for awhile, down the main road now. Already they had passed the first group of town houses, and The Running Footman, which is the last inn outside the town. There was only the High Street now to follow and the Old Place to cross, and The Fisherman’s Rest would be in sight.

“You have not answered my question, milor,” Theresia said presently.

“What question, Madame?” he asked.

“I asked you how Fate could intervene in the matter of our meeting again.”

“Oh!” he retorted simply. “You are staying in England, you tell me.”

“If you will deign to grant me leave,” she said, with gentle submission.

“It is not in my power to grant or to refuse.”

“You will not betray me⁠—to the police?”

“I have never betrayed a woman in my life.”

“Or to Lady Blakeney?”

He made no answer.

“Or to Lady Blakeney?” she insisted.

Then, as he still gave no answer, she began to plead with passionate earnestness.

“What could she gain⁠—or you⁠—by her knowing that I am that unfortunate, homeless waif, without kindred and without friends, Theresia Cabarrus⁠—the beautiful Cabarrus!⁠—once the fiancée of the great Tallien, now suspect of trafficking with her country’s enemies in France⁠ ⁠… and suspect of being a suborned spy in England!⁠ ⁠… My God, where am I to go? What am I to do? Do not tell Lady Blakeney, milor! On my knees I entreat you, do not tell her! She will hate me⁠—fear me⁠—despise me! Oh, give me a chance to be happy! Give me⁠—a chance⁠—to be happy!”

Again she had paused and placed her hand on his arm. Once more she was looking up at him, her eyes glistening with tears, her full red lips quivering with emotion. And he returned her appealing, pathetic glance for a moment or two in silence; then suddenly, without any warning, he threw back his head and laughed.

“By Gad!” he exclaimed. “But you are a clever woman!”

“Milor!” she