The red cockade

by Stanley John Weyman

He squeezed by me, and left me standing in the very place I would have chosen, in the angle of the doorway we had just passed; before he had clattered down half a dozen steps I had my finger on the latch. To my joy the door--which might so easily have been locked--yielded to my knee, and passing through it, I closed it behind me. Then turning to the right--all was still dark--I groped my way along the wall through which I had entered. I knew it to be the outside wall, and dimly in front I discerned the faint radiance of a window. Now that the moment had come to put all to the test I was as calm as I could wish to be. I counted ten paces, and came, as I expected, to the window; ten paces farther and I felt my way barred by a door. This should be the room--the last that way; listening intently for the first sounds of pursuit or alarm, I felt about for a latch, found it, and tried the door. Again fortune favoured me, it came to my hand; but instead of light I found all dark as before; and then understood, as I struck with some violence against a second door.

A stifled cry in a woman's voice came from beyond it: and some one asked sharply, "Who is that?"

I gave no answer, but searched for the latch, found it, and in a moment the door was opened. The light which poured out dazzled me for a second or two; but while I stood blinking, under the lamp I had a vision of two girls standing at bay, one behind the other, and the nearer was Denise!

I stepped towards her with a cry of joy; she retreated with terror written on her face. "What do you want?" she stammered as she retreated. "You have made some mistake. We----"

Then I remembered the guise in which I stood, and the gun-barrel in my hand, and I dashed back the cowl from my face; and in a moment--it was of all surprises the most joyous, for I had not seen her since we sat opposite one another in the carriage, and then only a word had passed between us--in a moment she was in my arms, on my breast, and sobbing with her head hidden, and my lips on her hair.

"They told me you were dead!" she cried. "They told me you were dead!"

Then I understood; and I held her to me, held her to me more and more closely, and said--God knows what I said. And for the moment she let me, and we forgot all else, our danger, the dark future, even the woman who stood by. We had been plighted before, and it had been nothing to us; now, with my lips on hers, and her arms clinging, I knew that it was once for all, and that only death, if death, could part us.

Alas! that was not so far from us that we could long ignore it. In a minute or two she freed herself, and thrust me from her, her face pale and red by turns, her eyes soft and shining in the lamplight. "How do you come here, Monsieur?" she cried. "And in that dress?"

"To see you," I answered. And at the word, I stepped forward and would have taken her in my arms again.

But she waved me back. "Oh, no, no!" she cried, shuddering. "Not now! Do you know that they will kill you? Do you know that they will kill you if they find you here? Go! Go! I beg of you, while you can."