It is not
a woman's business to wage war; but you, old as you are, shall learn
good stratagems from me. I'll deliver a whole family to your bayonets
--him, his ancestors, his past, his future. I will be as false and
treacherous to him as I was good and true. Yes, commandant, I will
bring that little noble to my arms, and he shall leave them to go to
death. I have no other rival. The wretch himself pronounced his doom,
--/a day without a morrow/. Your Republic and I shall be avenged. The
Republic!" she cried in a voice the strange intonations of which
horrified Hulot. "Is he to die for bearing arms against the nation?
Shall I suffer France to rob me of my vengeance? Ah! what a little
thing is life! death can expiate but one crime. He has but one head to
fall, but I will make him know in one night that he loses more than
life. Commandant, you who will kill him," and she sighed, "see that
nothing betrays my betrayal; he must die convinced of my fidelity. I
ask that of you. Let him know only me--me, and my caresses!"
She stopped; but through the crimson of her cheeks Hulot and Corentin
saw that rage and delirium had not entirely smothered all sense of
shame. Marie shuddered violently as she said the words; she seemed to
listen to them as though she doubted whether she herself had said
them, and she made the involuntary movement of a woman whose veil is
falling from her.
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