Satisfied that he did not follow her, but faint and out of breath with the speed she had employed in her flight, Pauline paused for a moment’s repose; and stretching out her hand, she leaned against a door which stood at the top of the staircase:—however, it afforded her no support, for the moment she touched it, it gave way under her hand, and flying open, discovered to her a well-lighted apartment. New terror seized upon Pauline; her eyes were dazzled by the sudden glare, and drawing back she would have fallen headlong down the stairs, but at that instant she was caught in the arms of De Blenau.
CHAPTER IX.
Which gets Pauline out, and Philip in, and leaves De Blenau in the middle.
THE tumult of joy and surprise—the mutual explanations—the delight of De Blenau—the relief to Pauline—with the thousand little et-cetera of such a meeting, I must leave to the reader’s imagination, which will doubtless do much more justice to every circumstance than could the quill of a foolish bird such as I hold in my hand. Neither shall I dilate upon the surprise of Philip the woodman, when, on coming to inform De Blenau that he had lost the lady in the windings of the Bastille, he discovered that she had found her way to the object of her search without his sage guidance. One piece of information, however, he conveyed, which hurried their conference towards a conclusion. The Governor, he said, who had been absent, had returned, and was then engaged in visiting the western wards; and therefore he might be shortly expected in that part of the prison.
This unpalatable news reminded Pauline to deliver the letter from the Queen, which in the joy and agitation of their first meeting she had neglected to do. De Blenau looked it over with a hurried glance. “She commands me,” said he, “to confess all exactly as it occurred; but on one or two points I have already refused to answer, and if I do so now without producing the Queen’s warrant for my conduct, I shall be held a base coward, who betrays his trust for fear of the torture.”
“And do you hesitate, Claude?” demanded Pauline, rather reproachfully—“do you hesitate to take the only means which can save you? Do you think nothing of what I feel? You, Claude, may be proof against corporeal torture; but I can not endure much longer the mental agony I have suffered since you have been confined here, especially when I reflected that even while you were acting most nobly, I was suspecting you ungenerously. If you love me as you profess, dear Claude, you will take the means that the Queen directs to ensure your safety.”
“Well, dearest Pauline,” replied De Blenau, yielding to the all-persuasive eloquence of woman’s lips, “I will do as you wish, and endeavour to pursue such measures as will be both safe and honourable. But now conclude what you were telling me, of having lost yourself in the prison, and how you found your way hither.”
It may be necessary to explain, that while this conversation had taken place between De Blenau and Pauline in the inner apartment, Philip the woodman had remained in the outer chamber, keeping watch with his ear to the door which communicated with the staircase, in order to apprise them in time of the Governor’s approach. Pauline now had not time to conclude her little history of perilous escapes and dangers ere Philip entering from the outer chamber interrupted her: “Fly down the stairs, Mademoiselle,” cried he, “and wait at the bottom till I join you. The Governor is coming, for I hear other steps on the stairs as well as those of the sentinel at the top.”
Prisons are not places for great ceremonies, nor for all the mighty delicacies of general society; so Pauline suffered De Blenau to press his lips upon hers unreproved, and then fled down the back staircase with the speed of light; after which the Count shut and bolted the iron door, and passed into the outer chamber, while the Woodman bustled about in the inner one, arranging the Count’s apparel for the night, and appearing much more busy than he really was.
Thus every thing was as it should be when the Governor entered; but still there was an angry spot upon his brow, and with but a slight inclination to De Blenau, he looked through the door between the two chambers, saying, “Well, Mr. Woodman of Mantes, where is your daughter? She is not in your cell.”