France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction
All the pent-up jealousy which had tortured her for the past three weeks
rose up, and goaded her into unmasking her rival.
Never for a moment did she doubt Juliette's guilt. The god of love may
be blind, tradition has so decreed it, but the demon of jealousy has a
hundred eyes, more keen than those of the lynx.
Anne Mie, pushed aside by Merlin's men when they forced their way into
Déroulède's study, had, nevertheless, followed them to the door. When
the curtains were drawn aside and the room filled with light, she had
seen Juliette enthroned, apparently calm and placid, upon the sofa.
It was instinct, the instinct born of her own rejected passion, which
caused her to read in the beautiful girl's face all that lay hidden
behind the pale, impassive mask. That same second sight made her
understand Merlin's hints and allusions. She caught every inflection of
his voice, heard everything, saw everything.
And in the midst of her anxiety and her terrors for the man she loved,
there was the wild, primitive, intensely human joy at the thought of
bringing that enthroned idol, who had stolen his love, down to earth at
last.
Anne Mie was not clever; she was simple and childish, with no complexity
of passions or devious ways of intellect. It was her elemental jealousy
which suggested the cunning plan for the unmasking of Juliette. She
would make the girl cringe and fear, threaten her with discovery, and
through her very terror shame her before Paul Déroulède.
And now it was all done; it had all occurred as she had planned it. Paul
knew that his love had been wasted upon a liar and a traitor, and
Juliette stood pale, humiliated, a veritable wreck of shamed humanity.
Anne Mie had triumphed, and was profoundly, abjectly wretched in her
triumph. Great sobs seemed to tear at her very heart-strings. She had
pulled down Paul's idol from her pedestal, but the one look she had cast
at his face had shown her that she had also wrecked his life.
He seemed almost old now. The earnest, restless gaze had gone from his
eyes; he was staring mutely before him, twisting between nerveless
fingers that blank scrap of paper, which had been the means of
annihilating his dream.
All energy of attitude, all strength of bearing, which were his chief
characteristics, seemed to have gone. There was a look of complete
blankness, of hopelessness in his listless gesture.
"How he loved her!" sighed Anne Mie, as she tenderly wrapped the shawl
round Madame Déroulède's shoulders.
Juliette had said nothing; it seemed as if her very life had gone out of
her. She was a mere statue now, her mind numb, her heart dead, her very
existence a fragile piece of mechanism. But she was looking at
Déroulède. That one sense in her had remained alive: her sight.
She looked and looked: and saw every passing sign of mental agony on his
face: the look of recognition of her guilt, the bewilderment at the
appalling crash, and now that hideous deathlike emptiness of his soul
and mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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