as the soldiers were out of the way, came and sat down opposite the young girl. He had remained silent and aloof while this last short episode was going on, but now he leaned over the table and began talking in an impressive whisper:
"Do not be afraid, Mademoiselle Blanche," he said. "I give you my word that nothing serious will happen to your father or to any of you, even if this meddlesome sergeant should discover your anonymous friend in this house. Please, please," he went on earnestly, as Blanche was obviously on the point of renewing her protest that there was no one here, "please say no more. I do firmly believe that you know nothing of what happened here this afternoon. I tell you I can, and will make the safety of those you care for a personal matter with the authorities. It might prove a little more difficult if your father has been sheltering someone surreptitiously instead of giving him up at once to the guard, but even so I can do it. My word on it, Mademoiselle Blanche."
He was very persuasive and very earnest. The ghost of a smile flitted round Blanche's pretty mouth.
"You are very kind, Louis," she said.
"I would do anything for you, mademoiselle," the young man responded earnestly.
She sighed and murmured: "I cannot understand the whole thing."
"What can't you understand, mademoiselle?"
"Monsieur le Professeur. He seemed such a friend. Do you really think that it was he?"
"Who caused all this trouble, you mean?"
"Yes!"
"Well! I am not sure," Maurin replied vaguely. "One never knows. He may be a spy of the revolutionary government and he may have denounced your father. They are very clever, those fellows. They worm themselves into your confidence, and then betray you for a mere pittance. I wish your father had not made such a friend of him. But as I assured you just now, mademoiselle, you have no cause for worry. While I live, no possible harm shall come to you or to your family. You do trust me, don't you?"
She murmured a timid "Yes!" and gave him her hand, which he raised to his lips.
The soldiers in the meanwhile had continued their search on the floor above. Whilst this went on overhead, Maurin shot searching glances at the young girl to see if she betrayed any anxiety for the guest whom he firmly believed to be still in the house. But Blanche remained seemingly unmoved and, much to his chagrin, Maurin was forced to come to the conclusion that he had brought a squad of Republican Guards out on a fool's errand and that his well-laid plan would end in a manner not altogether to his credit and not in accordance with his hopes.
A few moments later the sergeant and his men came clattering downstairs again, all of them obviously ill-tempered at having been dragged out of barracks at this hour and in such abominable weather. The sergeant kicked the dining-room door open with his boot, and addressed the lawyer in a harsh, almost insulting tone:
"I don't know what you were thinking of, citizen lawyer," he said, "when you stated before the Chief of Section that a suspicious stranger was lurking in this house. We have searched it from attic to cellar and there's no one in it except the family, one of whom is dead, and the others seemingly daft. At any rate I can't get anything out of them. I don't know if you can."
"It's no business of mine, as you well know, citizen sergeant," Maurin responded coolly, "to question these people any more than it is your business to question me. I attend to my duties, you had better attend to yours."
"My duty is to arrest the inmates of this house," the soldier countered, "and if they are wise they will come along quietly. Now then you," he added, addressing them all collectively: "Charles Levet, Augustin and Blanche Levet, and Marie Bachelier, I have a carriage waiting for you. Go and get ready quickly. I don't want to waste any more time."
Obediently and silently Blanche and Augustin made for the door. Blanche called to the maid who seemed by now more dead than alive.
"But this is an outrage," Maurin suddenly interposed vehemently, "you cannot leave the dead unguarded. Someone must remain in the house to prevent any sacrilege being committed."
The sergeant shrugged. "Sacrilege?" he put in with a sneer. "What is sacrilege? And why shouldn't the dead woman be alone in the house. She can't run away. Anyway if you feel like that, citizen lawyer, why don't you stay and look after her? Come on!" he concluded roughly, addressing the others, "didn't you hear me say I didn't want to waste any more time?"
He marshalled the three out of the room. As Blanche went past the lawyer, she threw him an appealing glance. He murmured under his breath: "I will look after her. I promise you."
Ten minutes later Charles Levet with his son and daughter and the maid were seated in the chaise, and were driven under arrest to the Town Hall, there to be charged with treason — or intended treason — against the Republic.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Morning After
But the very next day all was well. Charles Levet with his daughter and son, and the maid, had certainly passed a very uncomfortable night in the cells of the municipal prison, and the next morning had been conducted before the Chief of Section, where they had to submit to a searching examination. And here things did not go any too well. Charles Levet was taciturn and obstinate, Blanche voluble and tearful, and Augustin detached, and Marie the maid was so scared that she said first one thing then another, and all things untrue. The Chief of Section was impatient. He was desirous of doing the right thing, but he was a local man and the Levets were people of his own class: nothing "aristocratic" about them and, therefore, not likely to plot against the Republic, or to favour fugitive aristos. Indeed, he was very much annoyed that Maurin the lawyer — a personal friend of his and also of his own class — should have taken it upon himself to make incriminating statements against the Levets. To have indicted the Levet family for treason would have been a very unpopular move in Choisy where the old herbalist was highly respected and his pretty daughter courted by half the youth of the commune.
After the interrogation of the accused, the worthy Chief of Section had an interview with Maurin. The latter, as supple as an eel, wriggled out of his awkward position with his usual skill, and in a few moments had succeeded in persuading his friend that he, individually, had nothing to do with the false accusation brought against the Levets. He had, he said, been foolish enough to listen to the insinuations brought against these good people by a man whom he had met casually that day. A professor, so he understood, at the University of Grenoble.
"But why," the chief asked with some acerbity, "did you allow yourself to be led by the nose, by a man whom you hardly knew at all?"
"I said," the lawyer responded, "that I had met him casually that day, but I had often heard old Levet speak about him. He seemed to be a friend of the family and so —— "
"A friend?" the other broke in. "But you say that it was he who denounced these people."
"It was."
"How do you make that out?"
"Between you and me, my friend," the lawyer replied confidentially, "I have come to the conclusion that that so-called university professor was just an agent provocateur, in other words a spy of the government. There are a good many of those about, so I am told: the Convention makes use of them to ferret out obscure conspiracies, and treasonable
