“Come,” said Vergniaud, “if it is so, the lie acquitted him, at least, of a cruel discourtesy towards you.”
Ned laughed like a devil.
“Acquitted him!” he shrieked; “and while he reserved the jest to retail it to his brazen drab here! Oh, I know that no road is too common for Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans! And my—and this that I have hugged to my soul and cherished as almost too sacred for my own thoughts to prey upon! To be used to the foul purposes of a harlot and her lecher! Oh, my God!—I will kill him!”
Vergniaud essayed a manner of soothing.
“The shrine of love can only be desecrated from within. These may storm at the closed windows of thy soul, and the draught but make the sacred lamp of thy heart burn brighter. Hold up thy head, my dear friend.”
“I have never lowered it,” muttered Ned; but he seemed hardly to hear what the other said.
“’Tis a specious theatrical jade,” went on Vergniaud, “and always alert for situations. Witness her babbling reunions in the Rue de Rohan, where enough gas is brewed in a night to float ten balloons. Witness her habit of attire, her drum, her dog—the misbegotten maniac that she rescued months ago from the Salpétrière, and hath devoted to some mission of devilry that is the crowning infirmity of his brain. Bah! It is all affectation, I believe. She will certainly pose by-and-by before the judgment-seat.”
CHAPTER XI.
In the early morning of the 10th of August a young man, wearing the uniform of the National Guards, was arrested in the Champs Elysées by a patrol of the very corps to which he presumably belonged. This young man—of a bright, confident complexion, crisp gold hair, and a rather girlish turn of feature—took his mishap with an admirable sang-froid.
“Very well, my friends,” he said. “And I am arrested on suspicion—of what?”