Which? Or, Between Two Women

by Ernest Daudet

"Pass in," was his response.

He stepped aside. Dolores and Cornelia hastily entered, but Coursegol, who was to watch in the street, remained outside. The two women ascended to the fifth floor, and at last reached a door which was guarded as the one below had been. Cornelia gave the password and they entered. They traversed several rooms and finally found themselves in a spacious apartment dimly lighted by two candles. There were no windows, and the only means of lighting and ventilating the room was a sky-light; but this was now covered with heavy linen, undoubtedly for the purpose of concealing what was passing within from any spy who might be seized with a fancy for a promenade on the roof. At one end of the room, and separated from it by a thick curtain, was an alcove. There were about twenty people, mostly women, in the room. Every one stood silent and motionless, as if awaiting some mysterious event. When the clock struck eleven, a voice from behind the curtain said: "Close the doors."

The man on guard obeyed and came and took his place with the others, who with one accord fell upon their knees. At the same instant, the curtains parted, revealing the interior of the alcove in which stood a lighted altar surmounted by a cross of dark wood. At the foot of the altar stood an old white-haired priest, arrayed in sacerdotal robes, and assisted by two young men who acted as a choir. The service began. Dolores could not restrain her tears. After a few moments she became calmer and began to pray. She prayed fervently for Philip, for Antoinette, for all whom she loved and for herself. The ceremony was short. The priest addressed a brief exhortation to his audience. The time of pomp and of long sermons had gone by. At any moment they might be surprised, and the life of every one present would have been in danger had they been arrested in that modest room which had become for the nonce the only asylum of the proscribed Romish Church.

When the service was concluded, the curtains were again drawn and the worshippers withdrew, not without depositing in a box an offering for the venerable priest who had officiated. Just as Dolores and Cornelia were leaving the room, the brave old man passed them. He was arrayed in the garb of a worthy patriot, and was so effectually disguised that they would not have recognized him if he had not addressed them. As for the altar, it had disappeared as if by enchantment.

So, either in this house or in some other, Dolores regularly attended the offices of her church. Not a Sunday passed that Cornelia did not conduct her to some mysterious retreat, where a little band of brave-hearted Christians met to worship together. She was in this way made familiar with heroic deeds which gave her courage to brave the dangers that threatened every one in those trying days, and she was thus initiated into a sort of league, formed without previous intent, for the purpose of providing a means of escape for those who were in danger of becoming the victims of the dread and merciless Committee of Public Safety. It was in this way that she was led to accompany Cornelia one evening when the latter went to carry food to a nobleman whose life was in danger, and who was concealed in the neighborhood of the Invalides, and, on another occasion, to aid in the escape of an old man who had been condemned to die. The enthusiasm of Dolores was so great that she often exposed herself to danger imprudently and unnecessarily. She was proud and happy to assist the Bridouls in their efforts, and she conceived for them an admiration and an affection which inspired her with the desire to equal them in their noble work to which they had so bravely consecrated themselves.

But Coursegol, ignorant of most of the dangers to which Dolores exposed herself, or who knew of them only when it was too late to blame her for her temerity, had not lost sight of the motives which had induced him to accompany the girl on her expedition to Paris.

What they had aimed to do, as the reader doubtless recollects, was to find Philip de Chamondrin and Antoinette de Mirandol, who had both been missing since the death of the Marquis and the destruction of the château. Though Bridoul persisted in declaring that his former captain was not in Paris, Coursegol was not discouraged. For three months he pursued an unremitting search. He found several men who, like himself, had formed a part of M. de Chamondrin's company. He succeeded in effecting an entrance to the houses of some of the friends whom his master had visited during his sojourn in Paris. He frequented public places. He might have been seen, by turn, in the Jacobin Club, in the galleries of the Convention, at the Palais Égalité, in every place where he would be likely to find any trace of Philip; but nowhere could he discover the slightest clew to his whereabouts. Every evening on his return home, after a day of laborious search, he was obliged to admit his want of success to Dolores. She listened sadly, then shook her head and said:

"Bridoul is right. Philip and Antoinette have left the country; we shall never see them again. After all, it is, perhaps, for the best, since they are in safety."

But, even while she thus attempted to console herself, Dolores could not conceal the intense sorrow and disappointment that filled her heart, and which were caused, not so much by the absence of her friends as by the mystery that enshrouded their fate. If it be misery to be separated from those we love, how much greater is that misery when we know nothing concerning their fate, and do not even know whether they are dead or alive! Dolores loved Antoinette with all a sister's tenderness, and Philip, with a much deeper and far more absorbing passion, although she had voluntarily sacrificed her hopes and forced herself to see in him only a brother. She had paid for the satisfaction of knowing that he was happy and prosperous with all that made life desirable; and this uncertainty was hard to bear.