‘This must be a jest, Monsieur Schneider,’ said Mary, trembling, and turning deadly pale: ‘you cannot mean this; you do not know me: you never heard of me until to-day.’
‘Pardon me, belle dame,’ replied he; ‘your cousin Pierre has often talked to me of your virtues; indeed, it was by his special suggestion that I made the visit.’
‘It is false!—it is a base and cowardly lie!’ exclaimed she (for the young lady’s courage was up),—‘Pierre never could have forgotten himself and me so as to offer me to one like you. You come here with a lie on your lips—a lie against my father, to swear his life away, against my dear cousin’s honour and love. It is useless now to deny it: Father, I love Pierre Ancel; I will marry no other but him—no, though our last penny were paid to this man as the price of our freedom.’
Schneider’s only reply to this was a call to his friend Grégoire.
‘Send down to the village for the maire and some gendarmes; and tell your people to make ready.’
‘Shall I put the machine up?’ shouted he of the sentimental turn.
‘You hear him,’ said Schneider; ‘Marie Ancel, you may decide the fate of your father. I shall return in a few hours,’ concluded he, ‘and will then beg to know your decision.’
The advocate of the rights of man then left the apartment, and left the family, as you may imagine, in no very pleasant mood.
Old Uncle Jacob, during the few minutes which had elapsed in the enactment of this strange scene, sate staring wildly at Schneider, and holding Mary on his knees: the poor little thing had fled to him for protection, and not to her father, who was kneeling almost senseless at the window, gazing at the executioner and his hideous preparations. The instinct of the poor girl had not failed her; she knew that Jacob was her only protector, if not of her life—Heaven bless him!—of her honour. ‘Indeed,’ the old man said, in a stout voice, ‘this must never be, my dearest child—you must not marry this man. If it be the will of Providence that we fall, we shall have at least the thought to console us that we die innocent. Any man in France at a time like this would be a coward and traitor if he feared to meet the fate of the thousand brave and good who have preceded us.’
‘Who speaks of dying?’ said Edward. ‘You, brother Jacob?—you would not lay that poor girl’s head on the scaffold, or mine, your dear brother’s. You will not let us die, Mary; you will not, for a small sacrifice, bring your poor old father into danger?’