After Dark

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER I.

  Five years have elapsed since Monsieur Lomaque stood thoughtfully at thegate of Trudaine's house, looking after the carriage of the bride andbridegroom, and seriously reflecting on the events of the future.Great changes have passed over that domestic firmament in which heprophetically discerned the little warning cloud. Greater changes havepassed over the firmament of France.

  What was revolt five years ago is Revolution now--revolution whichhas ingulfed thrones, and principalities, and powers; which has setup crownless, inhereditary kings and counselors of its own, and hasbloodily torn them down again by dozens; which has raged and raged onunrestrainedly in fierce earnest, until but one king can still governand control it for a little while. That king is named Terror, andseventeen hundred and ninety-four is the year of his reign.

  Monsieur Lomaque, land-steward no longer, sits alone in anofficial-looking room in one of the official buildings of Paris. It isanother July evening, as fine as that evening when he and Trudaine sattalking together on the bench overlooking the Seine. The window of theroom is wide open, and a faint, pleasant breeze is beginning to flowthrough it. But Lomaque breathes uneasily, as if still oppressed by thesultry midday heat; and there are signs of perplexity and trouble in hisface as he looks down absently now and then into the street.

  The times he lives in are enough of themselves to sadden any man's face.In the Reign of Terror no living being in all the city of Paris can risein the morning and be certain of escaping the spy, the denunciation, thearrest, or the guillotine, before night. Such times are trying enough tooppress any man's spirits; but Lomaque is not thinking of them or caringfor them now. Out of a mass of papers which lie before him on his oldwriting-table, he has just taken up and read one, which has carried histhoughts back to the past, and to the changes which have taken placesince he stood alone on the doorstep of Trudaine's house, pondering onwhat might happen.

  More rapidly even than he had foreboded those changes had occurred.In less time even than he had anticipated, the sad emergency for whichRose's brother had prepared, as for a barely possible calamity,overtook Trudaine, and called for all the patience, the courage, theself-sacrifice which he had to give for his sister's sake. By slowgradations downward, from bad to worse, her husband's charactermanifested itself less and less disguisedly almost day by day.Occasional slights, ending in habitual neglect; careless estrangement,turning to cool enmity; small insults, which ripened evilly to greatinjuries--these were the pitiless signs which showed her that shehad risked all and lost all while still a young woman--these were theunmerited afflictions which found her helpless, and would have left herhelpless, but for the ever-present comfort and support of her brother'sself-denying love. From the first, Trudaine had devoted himself to meetsuch trials as now assailed him; and like a man he met them, in defiancealike of persecution from the mother and of insult from the son.

  The hard task was only lightened when, as time advanced, public troublebegan to mingle itself with private grief. Then absorbing politicalnecessities came as a relief to domestic misery. Then it grew to be theone purpose and pursuit of Danville's life cunningly to shape his courseso that he might move safely onward with the advancing revolutionarytide--he cared not whither, as long as he kept his possessions safe andhis life out of danger. His mother, inflexibly true to her Old-Worldconvictions through all peril, might entreat and upbraid, might talk ofhonor, and courage, and sincerity--he heeded her not, or heeded only tolaugh. As he had taken the false way with his wife, so he was now benton taking it with the world.

  The years passed on; destroying changes swept hurricane-like over theold governing system of France; and still Danville shifted successfullywith the shifting times. The first days of the Terror approached; inpublic and in private--in high places and in low--each man now suspectedhis brother. Crafty as Danville was, even he fell under suspicion atlast, at headquarters in Paris, principally on his mother's account.This was his first political failure; and, in a moment of thoughtlessrage and disappointment, he wreaked the irritation caused by it onLomaque. Suspected himself, he in turn suspected the land-steward. Hismother fomented the suspicion--Lomaque was dismissed.

  In the old times the victim would have been ruined, in the new times hewas simply rendered eligible for a political vocation in life. Lomaquewas poor, quick-witted, secret, not scrupulous. He was a good patriot;he had good patriot friends, plenty of ambition, a subtle, cat-likecourage, nothing to dread--and he went to Paris. There were plenty ofsmall chances there for men of his caliber. He waited for one of them.It came; he made the most of it; attracted favorably the notice of theterrible Fouquier-Tinville; and won his way to a place in the office ofthe Secret Police.

  Meanwhile, Danville's anger cooled down; he recovered the use of thatcunning sense which had hitherto served him well, and sent to recall thediscarded servant. It was too late. Lomaque was already in a position toset him at defiance--nay, to put his neck, perhaps, under the blade ofthe guillotine. Worse than this, anonymous letters reached him, warninghim to lose no time in proving his patriotism by some indisputablesacrifice, and in silencing his mother, whose imprudent sincerity waslikely ere long to cost her her life. Danville knew her well enoughto know that there was but one way of saving her, and thereby savinghimself. She had always refused to emigrate; but he now insisted thatshe should seize the first opportunity he could procure for her ofquitting France until calmer times arrived.

  Probably she would have risked her own life ten times over rather thanhave obeyed him; but she had not the courage to risk her son's too;and she yielded for his sake. Partly by secret influence, partly byunblushing fraud, Danville procured for her such papers and permits aswould enable her to leave France by way of Marseilles. Even then sherefused to depart, until she knew what her son's plans were for thefuture. He showed her a letter which he was about to dispatch toRobespierre himself, vindicating his suspected patriotism, andindignantly demanding to be allowed to prove it by filling some office,no matter how small, under the redoubtable triumvirate which thengoverned, or more properly terrified, France. The sight of this documentreassured Madame Danville. She bade her son farewell, and departed atlast, with one trusty servant, for Marseilles.

  Danville's intention, in sending his letter to Paris, had been simply tosave himself by patriotic bluster. He was thunderstruck at receivinga reply, taking him at his word, and summoning him to the capital toaccept employment there under the then existing Government. There was nochoice but to obey. So to Paris he journeyed, taking his wife with himinto the very jaws of danger. He was then at open enmity with Trudaine;and the more anxious and alarmed he could make the brother feel on thesister's account, the better he was pleased. True to his trust and hislove, through all dangers as through all persecutions, Trudaine followedthem; and the street of their sojourn at Paris, in the perilous days ofthe Terror, was the street of his sojourn too.

  Danville had been astonished at the acceptance of his profferedservices; he was still more amazed when he found that the post selectedfor him was one of the superintendent's places in that very office ofSecret Police in which Lomaque was employed as agent. Robespierre andhis colleagues had taken the measure of their man--he had money enough,and local importance enough to be worth studying. They knew where he wasto be distrusted, and how he might be made useful. The affairs of theSecret Police were the sort of affairs which an unscrupulously cunningman was fitted to help on; and the faithful exercise of that cunning inthe service of the State was insured by the presence of Lomaque in theoffice. The discarded servant was just the right sort of spy to watchthe suspected master. Thus it happened that, in the office of the SecretPolice at Paris, and under the Reign of Terror, Lomaque's old masterwas, nominally, his master still--the superintendent to whom he wasceremonially accountable, in public--the suspected man, whose slightestwords and deeds he was officially set to watch, in private.

  Ever sadder and darker grew the face of Lomaque as he now pondered aloneover the changes and misfortunes o
f the past five years. A neighboringchurch-clock striking the hour of seven aroused him from hismeditations. He arranged the confused mass of papers before him--lookedtoward the door, as if expecting some one to enter--then, findinghimself still alone, recurred to the one special paper which had firstsuggested his long train of gloomy thoughts. The few lines it containedwere signed in cipher, and ran thus: