“Nou-Nou, will you please leave me alone.”

“Not till I’ve told you. You must listen to me. It’s best to know the truth. It can do little good now. Perhaps that’s why I’m telling you.

I knew her mother well. She was good to me. She took me in when I had my trouble . when I lost my man and my little one. She put Ursule into my arms and she said: “Here is your baby now, Nou-Nou.” And then there was something to live for. She was my baby. My little love. And I stopped thinking so bitterly about my own sweet baby. Her mother was a sick woman. She was like Ursule . listless . never wanting to do much, turning away from her food, and then me pains started.

They flared up. She suffered terribly. She was mad with pain, and then she took her own life because she could not endure it any more. It was going to happen to Ursule. She was so like her mother. I knew, didn’t I? Who could know better? She had the pains . only mildly as her mother had had them at first and I had the doctors to her. They said she was suffering from that which had killed her mother. I knew what it was going to be like. “

She had my attention now. I was staring at her in amazed horror.

“Yes,” said Nou-Nou, ‘she would have suffered if she had lived. And she would never have taken her own life. She had strong feelings against that. She’d talked of them often.

“We’re here to fulfill a purpose, Nou-Nou,” she used to say.

“It’s no use giving up half-way.

If you do you’ll have to come back and do it all again. ” I couldn’t bear to think of her suffering … not my little Ursule. So I saw to it that she didn’t…”

“You, Nou-Nou. You killed her.”

To save her pain,” said Nou-Nou simply. There! I’m a murderess, you’re thinking. You’re thinking that they should take me and hang me on a lantern or send me to the guillotine.”

“I know you did it for love,” I said.

“Yes, I did it for love. My life is empty now she has gone. But I know this: she is suffering no pain where she is now. That’s how I console myself.”

“But you let it be thought…”

Sly lights came into her eyes. That he had killed her. Yes, I did. He had killed her . a thousand times in his thoughts. He wanted her out of the way, but he didn’t kill her. I, who longed to have her with me forever, did that. “

She covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

“My little one. She looked so peaceful lying there. She would just slip away, I knew. No pain … never again. All her fears of him were over. She is happy now, my baby. She is with that other baby … my two darlings together.”

“Oh, Nou-Nou,” I said, and tried to put an arm about her.

She threw me off.

“You’ll never have him now,” she said malevolently.

“It’s all over.”

Then she rose and glided towards the door. She stopped there and looked back at me.

“You should go home,” she said.

“Forget this happened … if you can.” She took a step back into the room and fixed her wild eyes on me.

“You are in danger too. They let you go tonight, but you are one of them, remember.” Her lips twisted into a grim smile. The cousin . the same family. Now you will see what it means to belong to such a family. They were after the big fish tonight. But all fishes are sweet, as is the blood of aristocrats to them. They want to see it flow . the sons’, the daughters’, the nieces’, the nephews’, the cousins . “

“Nou-Nou,” I began, but she had turned away and as she went she muttered: They will come, I tell you. They will come for you. “

Then she went out and left me.

I felt stunned by her revelation. I had misjudged him, and I might never have a chance to ask his pardon.

What was happening to him now? Desperately I tried to curb my imagination. I could not shut out of my mind the memory of those distorted faces, crazy with blood lust, determined on revenge.

They had taken him. Nou-Nou’s voice kept echoing in my ears: They will come for you. “

I sat at the window waiting for the morning. What I should do then I did not know. Where had they taken him? What had happened to him?

Perhaps already . I would not allow myself to believe that. I found myself making bargains with God.

“Let me see him … only once. Let me tell him that I know now how I misjudged him. Let me tell him that I love him . that I have always loved him, but that I was too inexperienced, too bound by convention, to know it. Once … let me see him once.”

He would have said I should not be here. I should have gone off with Perigot while there was a chance. How could I? I could think of nothing but him. My own safety seemed of no importance. If they were going to kill him they could kill me with him.

In the distance I heard shouting. I was immediately at the window, looking out. There were lights among the trees . torches coming nearer to the chateau as I watched.

Now I could hear their voices. Did I imagine it or could I hear the word: Cousine. “

They were chanting something.

Footsteps outside my door. Light running footsteps.

Voices were whispering. It was the servants.

“They are coming for the cousin … now.”

I went back to the window. I heard it distinctly.

“A bos la cousine. A la lanterne.”

My throat was dry. So it had come, then. I was to be taken’ by the mob as he had been. This was the price I was to pay. I had allowed myself to be drawn into subterfuge. I had pretended to be Margot’s cousin for her sake and afterwards I had allowed the deception to be continued.

Now this very pretence could cost me my life.

I did not want to die. I wanted so much to live, to be with my love, to grow old with him. There was so much I had to learn about him, about life. I had so much to live for . if he could be with me.

The noise from below was horrific. I shut my eyes and it was as though those faces made hideous by greed, envy, hatred and malice were closing in on me.

The light from the torches illumined my room. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of a wild-eyed woman whom I scarcely recognized as myself.

At any moment now . There was a hammering on my door. I went to it and leaned against it.

“Open … quickly.” It was Perigot.

I turned the key. He seized my arm and dragged me into the corridor.

He ran pulling me with him. We mounted a spiral staircase which went on and on.

We had reached the watch tower.

There he touched a panel and the wood slid back disclosing a cavity.

“Get in,” he said.

“You could be safe here. They will search the chateau but few know of this place. I will come back when they have gone.”

The panel shut on me. I was in complete darkness.

I beard them come into the watch tower. I heard their laughter and their ugly threats as to what they would do when they found me.

Again and again I heard the word “Cousine’ and my thoughts went back to the peaceful days of my life when my mother had been alive and it would have seemed impossible that I should ever become a victim of the French revolution. Cousin … That was when it had began. It was when I had agreed to come to France with Margot and pose as her cousin. If I had not done so … No, I told myself, even with danger and the prospect of violent death close to me, I would do it again. I regret nothing … except my doubts of the Comte.

“The Devil on Horseback.” I used it tenderly now.

My Devil. But I wanted nothing else from life but to be with him, and I would risk anything . even my life . for the time I had spent with him. He loved me and I loved him and I would give my life for that.

At any moment I was expecting the wall to open. They would find the secret sliding panel. Perhaps they would tear the walls down. I crouched, waiting in horror.

Then I realized that the noise had died away. Was I safe, then?

It seemed like hours that I waited there in the quiet darkness and then Perigot came.

He had brought rugs and candles.

“You will have to stay here for a while,” he said.

“The mob was murderous. They have ransacked the chateau and taken away some of the valuables. Thank God, they did not set it on fire. I have convinced them that you escaped when they took the Comte. Some of them have taken horses from the stables and gone off in pursuit. It will die down in a day or two. They have others with whom to occupy themselves.

You must stay here until I can take you away. As soon as it is possible I will take you to Grasseville. “

“Perigot,” I said, ‘it is the second time I have owed my life to you.”

“The Comte would never forgive me if I allowed you to come to any harm.”

“You talk of him as though …”

“Mademoiselle,” he said seriously, ‘the Comte was always one to extricate himself from trouble. He will do it again. “

“Oh Perigot, how is that possible?”

“Only God … and the Comte… will know. Mademoiselle. But it must be. It will be.”

And Perigot’s words did more to lighten the darkness of my hiding place than his candles could ever do.

I passed through that night somehow in my candlelit prison. I lay on my rugs and I thought of the Comte. Perigot was right. He would find some way out.

Perigot came early next morning. He brought food which I could not eat.

He said that he would have two horses ready in the stables. Thank God the mob had not taken them all. We must slip down after dark for he did not know whom he could trust. I must try to eat something and be ready when the moment came.