The current of thought veered to Aline, and at that life woke in him, the desire to live, the desire of her, the desire to love. Then on a tide of bitterness, "She will be free." Quickly came the answer, "Free and defenceless."
He sank his head in his hands, and, for the first time for months, deliberately evoked her image.
It seemed as if Fate were concerning herself with Dangeau's affairs, for she sent a bullet Vibert's way next morning. It ripped his scalp, and sent him bleeding and delirious to a sick-bed from which he did not rise for several weeks. It was, therefore, not until late in June that Robespierre stretched out his long arm, and haled Dangeau from his post in Spain to Paris and the prison of La Force.
Meanwhile there was trouble at Rancy-les-Bois. Mr. and Mrs. Desmond, after a series of most adventurous adventures, had arrived at Bâle, and there, with characteristic imprudence, proceeded to narrate to a much interested circle of friends and relatives the full and particular details of their escape. Rancy was mentioned, Mlle Ange described and praised, Aline's story brought in, Madelon's part in the drama given its full value. Such imprudence may seem inconceivable, but it had more than one parallel.
In this instance trouble was not long in breeding. Three years previously Joseph Pichon of Bâle had gone Paris-wards to seek his fortune. Circumstances had sent him as apprentice to M. Bompard, the watchmaker of Rancy's market-town. Here he stayed two years, years which were enlivened by tender passages between him and Marie, old Bompard's only child. At the end of two years M. Pichon senior died, having lost his elder son about six months before. Joseph, therefore, came in for his father's business, and immediately made proposals for the hand of Mlle Marie. Bompard liked the young man, Marie declared she loved him; but the times were ticklish. It was not the moment for giving one's heiress to a foreigner. Such an action might be unfavourably construed, deemed unpatriotic; so Joseph departed unbetrothed, but with as much hope as it is good for a young man to nourish. His views were Republican, his sentiments ardent. By the time his own affairs were settled it was to be hoped that public matters would also be quieter, and then—why, then Marie Bompard might become Marie Pichon, no one forbidding. Imagine, then, the story of the Desmonds' escape coming to the ears of Joseph the Republican. He burned with interest, and, having more than a touch of the busybody, sat down and wrote Bompard a full account of the whole affair. Bompard was annoyed. He crackled the pages angrily, and stigmatised Joseph as a fool and a meddler. Bompard was fat, and a good, kind, easy man; he desired to live peaceably, and really the times made it very difficult. His first impulse was to put the paper in the fire and hold his tongue. Then he reflected that he was not Joseph's only acquaintance in the place. If the young man were to write to Jean Dumont, the Mayor's son, for instance, and then it was to come out that the facts had been known to Bompard, and concealed by him. "Seigneur!" exclaimed Bompard, mopping his brow, which had become suddenly moist. Men's heads had come off for less than that. He read the letter again, drumming on his counter the while, with a stubby, black-nailed hand; at any rate, risk or no risk, Madelon must not be mentioned. He had known her from a child; there was, in fact, some very distant connection between the families, and she was a good, pretty girl. Bompard was a fatherly man. He liked to chuck a pretty girl under the chin, and see her blush, and Madelon had a pleasant trick of it; and then, just now, all the world knew she was expecting the birth of her first child. No, certainly he would hold his tongue about Madelon. He burnt the letter, feeling like a conspirator, and it was just as he was blowing away the last compromising bit of ash that Mathieu Leroux walked in upon him.
They talked of the weather first, and then of the prospects of a good apple year. Then Mathieu harked back to the old story of the fire, worked himself into a passion over it, noted Bompard's confusion, and in ten minutes had the whole story out,—all, that is, except his own daughter's share in it, and at that he guessed with an inward fury which fairly frightened poor fat Bompard.
"Those Desaix!" he exclaimed with an oath. "If I 'd had your tale six weeks ago! Now there 's only Ange and the niece. It's like Marthe to cheat one in the end!"
Bompard looked curiously at him. He did not know the secret of Mathieu's hostility to the Desaix family. Old Mère Anne could have told him that when Marthe was a handsome, black-eyed girl, Mathieu Leroux had lifted his eyes high, and conceived a sullen passion for one as much above him as Réné de Montenay was above her sister Ange. The village talked, Marthe noted the looks that followed her everywhere, and boiled with pride and anger. Then one day Mme de Montenay, coldly ignoring all differences in the ranks below her own, said:
"So, Marthe, you are to make a match of it with young Leroux"; and at that the girl flamed up.
"If we 're not high enough for the Château, at least we 're too high for the gutter," she said, with a furiously pointed glance at Réné de Montenay, whose eyes were on her sister.