Every one must do as best he can, and as his heart and his head dictate to him. One is not the better for this, and another the worse. Farewell, my friend! Take care for your own safety, for it is well that some faithful ones should still remain to serve the queen, and I know that you will serve her when she needs your help."
"Then give me your hand in parting, my friend. And if at last you come to the conclusion to flee, come to Normandy, and in the village of Lerne, near Dieppe, you will find me, and my father will receive you, and you shall be treated as if you were my brother."
"Thanks, my friend, thanks! One last shake of the hand. There! Now you are away, and I remain here."
Toulan went out into the street, walked along with a cheerful face, and repaired at once to the hall where the Committee of Safety were sitting.
"Citizens and brothers," he said, in aloud, bold voice, "I have just been informed that I have been brought under suspicion and denounced. Friends have warned me to betake to flight. But I am no coward, I have no bad conscience, and therefore do not fly, but come here and ask you is this true? Is it possible that you regard me as no patriot, and as a traitor?"
"Yes," answered President Hobart, with a harsh, hard voice, "you are under suspicion, and we mistrust you. This shameful seducer, this she-wolf Marie Antoinette has cast her foxy eyes upon you, and would doubtless succeed if you are often with her. We have therefore once for all taken your name from the list of the official guards in the Temple, and you will no longer be exposed to the wiles of the Austrian woman. But besides this, as the second denunciation has been made against you to-day, and as it is asserted that you are in relations with aristocrats and suspected persons, we have considered it expedient, in view of the common safety, to issue a warrant for your apprehension. An officer has just gone with two soldiers to your house, to arrest you and bring you hither. You have simply anticipated the course of law by surrendering yourself. Officer, soldiers, here!"
The persons summoned appeared, and put Toulan under arrest, preparatory to taking him to prison.
"It is well," said Toulan, with a noble calmness. "I know that the time will come when you will regret having so abused a true patriot; and I hope, for the peace of your consciences, that there will be a time then to undo the evil which you are doing to me to-day, and that my head will then be on my shoulders, that my lips may be able to testify to you what my heart now dictates, that I forgive you!
You are in error about me, yet I know that you are acting not out of enmity to me, but for the weal of the country, and out of love for the great, united republic. As the true and tenderly loving son of this noble, exalted mother, I forgive you for giving ear to my unrighteous accusers, and, even if you shed my innocent blood, my dying wish will be a blessing on the republic."
"Those are noble and excellent words," said Hobart, coldly. "But if deeds speak in antagonism to words, we cannot let the latter beguile us out of our sense, but we must give heed to justice."
"That is the one only thing that I ask," cried Toulan, brightly.
"Let justice be done, my brothers, and I shall very soon he free, and shall come out from an investigation like a spotless lamb. I make no resistance. Come, my friends, take me to prison! I only ask for permission to be escorted first to my house, to procure a few articles of clothing to use during my imprisonment. But I urge pressingly that my articles may be sealed up in my presence. For when the man of the house is not at home, it fares badly with the safety of his property, and I shall be able to feel at ease only when the seal of the republic is upon my possessions. I beg you therefore to allow my paper and valuables to be sealed in my presence. You will thus be sure that my wife and my friends have not removed any thing which might be used against me, and my innocence will shine out the more clearly. I beg you therefore to comply with my wish."
The members of the committee consulted with one another in low tones, and the chairman then announced to Toulan that his wish would be complied with, and that an escort of soldiers might accompany him to his house, to allow him to procure linen and clothing, and to seal his effects and papers in their presence.
Toulan thanked them with cheerful looks, and went out into the street between the two guards. As they were on the way to his house, he talked easily with them, laughed and joked; but in his own thoughts he said to himself, "You are lost! hopelessly lost, if you do not escape now. You are the prey of the guillotine, if the gates of the prison once close upon you; therefore escape, escape or die."
While he was thus laughing and talking with the soldiers, and meanwhile thinking such solemn thoughts, his sharp black eyes were glancing in all directions, looking for a friend who might assist him out of his trouble. And fortune sent him such a friend!--Ricard, Ionian's most trusted counsellor, the abettor of his plans. Toulan called him with an animated face, and in loud tones told him that he had been denounced, and therefore arrested; and that he was only allowed to go to his house to procure some clothing.
"Come along, Ricard," he said. "They are going to put my effects under seal, and you have some papers and books on my writing-table.
Come along, and take possession of your own things, so that they may not be sealed up as mine."
Ricard nodded assent, and a significant look told Toulan that his friend understood him, and that his meaning was, that Ricard should take possession of papers that might bring Toulan under suspicion.
Continuing their walk, they spoke of indifferent matters, and at last reached Toulan's house. Marguerite met them with calm bearing.
She knew that every cry, every expression of anxiety and trouble, would only imperil the condition of her husband, and her love gave her power to master herself.
