And she wished to see no one.  She had a memory to dwell on—­a short, heavenly memory.  It consisted of a few words, a kiss—­the last one—­ on her hand, and that passionate murmur which had escaped from his lips when he knelt at her feet: 

“Juliette!”

CHAPTER XIX

Complexities.

Citizen-Deputy Deroulede had been privately interviewed by the
Committee of Public Safety, and temporarily allowed to go free.

The brief proceedings had been quite private, the people of Paris were not to know as yet that their favourite was under a cloud.  When he had answered all the question put to him, and Merlin—­just returned from his errand at the Luxembourg Prison—­had given his version of the domiciliary visitation in the Citizen-Deputy’s house, the latter was briefly told that for the moment the Republic had no grievance against him.

But he knew quite well what that meant.  He would be henceforth under suspicion, watched incessantly, as a mouse is by the cat, and pounced upon, the moment time would be considered propitious for his final downfall.

The inevitable waning of his popularity would be noted by keen, jealous eyes; and Deroulede, with his sure knowledge of mankind and of character, knew well enough that his popularity was bound to wane sooner or later, as all such ephemeral things do.

In the meanwhile, during the short respite which his enemies would leave him, his one thought and duty would be to get his mother and Anne Mie safely out of the country.

And also...

He thought of her, and wondered what had happened.  As he walked swiftly across the narrow footbridge, and reached the other side of the river, the events of the past few hours rushed upon his memory with terrible, overwhelming force.

A bitter ache filled his heart at the remembrance of her treachery.  The baseness of it all was so appalling.  He tried to think if he had ever wronged her; wondered if perhaps she loved someone else, and wished him out of her way.

But, then, he had been so humble, so unassuming in his love.  He had arrogated nothing unto himself, asked for nothing, demanded nothing in virtue of his protecting powers over her.

He was torturing himself with this awful wonderment of why she had treated him thus.

Out of revenge for her brother’s death—­that was the only explanation he could find, the only palliation for her crime.

He knew nothing of her oath to her father, and, of course, had never heard of the sad history of this young, sensitive girl placed in one terrible moment between her dead brother and her demented father.  He only thought of common, sordid revenge for a sin he had been practically forced to commit.

And how he had loved her! 
Yes, loved—­for that was in the past now.

She had ceased to be a saint or a madonna; she had fallen from her pedestal so low that he could not find the way to descend and grope after the fragments of his ideal.