"Eh! no doubt; and if there is anything surprising, it is your own astonishment, my dear Lebrenn!" suddenly put in a voice.
Charlotte and her husband turned quickly around, to see Billaud-Varenne standing in the open doorway. For some moments he had been a party to Lebrenn's confidences; an indiscretion almost involuntary on Billaud's part, for the young couple, absorbed in their conversation, had not noticed his entrance. Now stepping forward, he said to Charlotte:
"Be so good as to excuse me, madam, for having listened. Your door was open, and that circumstance should mitigate my 'spying'." Then with a friendly gesture preventing John's rising from the reclining chair where he half sat, half lay, Billaud-Varenne added, as he affectionately pressed the hand of Charlotte's husband: "Do not move, my dear invalid. You have won the right to remain on your stretcher. Your worthy wife must have written to you what interest I took in all that concerned you since your departure for the army."
"My wife has often given me intimation of your affectionate remembrance, my dear Billaud; and further, I know it is through your intervention that Citizen Hubert, my mother-in-law's brother, has been mercifully forgotten in the prison of Carmes, where he has long been held as a suspect. Thanks to you, his life is no longer in danger."
"Enough, too much, on that subject," declared Billaud-Varenne, half smiling, half serious. "Do not awaken in me remorse for a slip. Citizen Hubert has ever been, and ever will be, one of the bitterest enemies of the Republic. For that reason, he should never have been spared. I should have ordered his head to fall."
CHAPTER XXXII.
AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM!
It was forty-five days after the visit of Billaud-Varenne to John Lebrenn; that is to say, it was the 8th Thermidor of the year II (July 26, 1794). Alone in his parlor, towards eight o'clock in the evening, advocate Desmarais now paced up and down in agitation, now sank pensively into a chair, his face between his hands. The anguish and terror which for two years had dogged the hypocrite's steps had completely whitened his hair. His sallow, atrabilious features disclosed the tortures of his soul. Throwing himself into the arm-chair, worn out, he muttered to himself:
"They insist upon coming! Such a session on my premises! I tremble to think of it—I may be sent to the guillotine to-morrow if Robespierre triumphs. Curses upon my wife and daughter who deserted me! Yet, a plague on my weakness, there is not a day goes by but I regret the unworthy creatures! How happy I was in my family. I loved my daughter, I love her still, as much as it is possible to love a creature on this earth. With what tenderness she would have surrounded my old age. I should have been consoled, comforted; for from my daughter I had no secrets, and her confidences gladdened my heart. My God, 'tis I that am unhappy!"
After this outburst the lawyer remained for a long time silent and dejected. Then, rising of a sudden, he shouted: "That infamous Lebrenn! It is he who is the cause of my woes. He came to bring trouble under my roof."
The advocate's soliloquy was cut short by the entrance of a lackey, who announced that several citizens desired audience with him.