“Corbleu, I was right in admiring you! Yes, there is no place but the grave for that. I am not asking you to journey so far. But you understand that, if you vanish, you will, in a sense, assume some of the guilt of these happenings at Mirabel?”
“Yes, I understand. And that is what you want, Citizen, in order to take it off your shoulders—and Suzon’s?”
“But you can scarcely regard yourself, in that case, as an innocent scapegoat, can you, Madame Vidal?” he suggested.
She did not answer this, but said, with a beating heart and outward calm, “There is a place to which I could go—a place far enough away, where I should not, probably, be found. But how, without a passport or papers of any kind, am I to get there?”
“Papers!” he said half sneeringly. “Plenty of Royalist agents in Paris would forge you those.”
“I do not know any Royalist agents in Paris, Citizen.”
“Again so innocent! Do you expect me to provide you with papers?”
“I doubt if you could,” answered Valentine. “I expect nothing—but I do wish to preserve Suzon from ill.”
“And me?” suggested Camain. “No, I am not much above a bricklayer by origin—no stewards to the aristocracy in my family! Well, Madame Vidal, since I am fond of Suzon, and since I was misguided enough to admire you, and since I am not indifferent to the safety of my own skin, I can give you a paper . . . at a price. I have here,” he brought out a pocket-case, “a blank laissez-passer that I once got out of Barras when he was particularly in need of cash. That would carry you anywhere as long as the Directory stands, but it cost me a deal of money. The question is, how much is it worth to you?”
The Duchesse’s hand went involuntarily to the neck of her dress. Was it for this that the Abbé had left her the necklace?