Memory can be terribly cruel!

Aurore, lying numb and tired after a few hours' heavy sleep, felt the full force of this cruelty.

One by one, pictures which she would long all her life to blot out from her mind rose before her aching senses. Visions of shame and of cowardice which she felt would forever after leave a stain upon her soul. Even now memory most cruel brought the blush of humbled pride to her cheeks.

She, Aurore de Marigny, daughter of one of the proudest houses in France, claiming kinship with Royalty, the apple of her father's eyes, the worshipped mistress of a regal ancestral home, she had grovelled at a plebeian's feet; on her knees she had begged him to set her free, entreated him with words that in the past she would only have spoken to her King.

She had begged him, on her knees, with hands clinging to his rough clothes, to let her go back to Marigny and to her father; begged him to look on his vengeance as complete, since he had broken her spirit and humiliated her so that she would never dare look one of her own caste in the face again.

And memory mocked her with that picture of herself, lying like a crumpled heap of silk and laces at the feet of the man whom she hated and loathed and despised beyond what she would have thought herself capable of feeling. And through it all he had remained cool, sarcastic, indifferent.

"Do not cry, ma mie," he had said once: "you will make your eyes red."

And another time: "In Heaven's name, do not raise your voice. You don't want our friends down below to know that we have already embarked on matrimonial quarrels."

But the words that memory recalled more insistently were more fateful than all:

"While you are my submissive wife no one dare touch your father or you; but if you choose to leave me, no power on earth will save either of you from the guillotine. I care naught," he added presently, "about that arrogant father of yours: let him die a dog's death, for aught I care, but I do not choose to see my wife's pretty head roll into the same basket as those of the enemies of France."

"I hate you," she had murmured once. "I shall always hate you."

"I have no love for you, either," he had retorted coolly, "but we shall get used to each other."

And when in her agony of mind she had cried out, "Why - why have you done this? You hate me, you say - then why not let me go?"

"Because..." The word had escaped him, vehement and fierce; the cruel expression she had learned to fear had flashed for a few seconds out of his eyes. But the next moment he pulled himself together, seemed, indeed, to shed his fury like a mantle. A mocking smile chased away the ferocious glance, and he said lightly:

"Because you are beautiful, ma mie; you are my wife and I wish to keep you. That is all."

In the olden days Aurore de Marigny, even when she was little more than a child, had been wont to despise the airs and graces, the megrims and mild hysterics in which her elegant friends so often indulged. She had always been a fearless child: at games, on horseback, nothing frightened her. In an age when women affected the weaknesses of their sex as a sign of aristocratic birth, she would find joy in breaking in an untamed colt or accompanying her father in his shooting expeditions after wolf or wild boar in the forests of Ardennes. She had never known fear until now, when a beggarly caitiff held her like a slave in thrall. But with memory's cruel insistence there came back to her the knowledge that she was afraid; that there was one man in the world the sight of whom caused a quiver of abject fear to go right through her body, the sound of whose footfall caused every drop of blood to flow back to her heart. Why, she couldn't say.

It was that despicable fear which at this fateful hour had taken such hold of her that, even while his formidable arm encircled her waist and raised her from the ground where she had been cowering like a frightened beast, her senses suddenly forsook her, her head fell back, her teeth chattered as if in ague, her limbs felt as cold as ice. Broken and bruised by the terrible mental and physical struggle, she was numb and limp, had not one spark of fight left in her, or the strength of a kitten. She felt herself lifted off the ground and laid down somewhere, where it was soft and warm and sweet smelling. She heard the dreaded footfall receding from her, the opening of a door, and then a call.

There were other people in the room presently - a man and a woman. Aurore couldn't see them; she had not the energy to raise her eyelids; but gentle kindly hands undressed her, took off her shoes and stockings, combed her hair and moistened her face with sweet-smelling water. She felt herself being tucked up in a soft downy bed, and soft murmurs that sounded pitiful and motherly soothed her throbbing senses.

A man's voice, persuasive and authoritative, said, "Try and drink this, citizeness, it will make you sleep." She obeyed and drank the slightly bitter liquid that was held to her lips. After that she lay placid and quiet and, presently, must have dropped off to sleep.