Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1911)

A REPUBLICAN MARRIAGE. 101 "How true were the words of that rude and base-born blacksmith!'' She turned her back, and paced slowly away from him. In the meantime the servants had led Bernard to the gateway. He no longer exerted his enormous strength, and they found courage to taunt him and laugh sardonically as they thrust him forth into the dusty road. It was only when they threw the bag of gold coins after him that he turned on them in a sudden rage. Plucking forth a single coin, he pressed it madly to his lips; then took the bag and dashed it furiously against the gates. The coins scattered and rolled in front of the gateway, and ere the last had settled into the dust, Bernard was but a distant figure striding rapidly down the road. The Bastile had fallen, and Marat had been assassinated. The King and Queen had been executed, and the Commune had been declared. The fair country of France was one bleeding, flaming, weltering terror. But Helene de la Croix still kept her state in her beautiful chateau on the banks of the Loire. She sat quietly writing at a table in the great hall of the chateau in the latter part of that terrible year 1794. The door burst suddenly open as she wrote, and two maids and a man servant rushed into the room. "Madame, Madame !" they cried in terror. "Fly ! Fly ! We are discovered at last ! The Girondists have not forgotten us!" "Calm yourself, Amelie," said the Countess contemptuously "You need have no fears while I am here to protect you." "But, Madame " "Enough!" said the Countess. "I will hear no more of your silly terrors !" As if in answer to her words her cousin Cyril rushed into the room. He was no longer the debonair, languid aristocrat, and his face was blanched with sickening fear. "Read, Helene! Eead !" he cried, as he cast a letter into her lap. Helene de la Croix quietly unfolded the missive. In a hurried scrawl she read the words : "The Revolutionists are advancing — murdering — burning and pillaging — fly for your lives — A Friend." "An 'anonymous letter," said Helene contemptuously. "I have received many of them." "But this one is true," pleaded Cyril in agony. "Last night I saw a glare in the East. To-night it will be this chateau which will feed the flames." Helene drew herself proudly up. So regal was her pose that she looked taller than usual. Her cousin quailed before her commanding eve. "Let them come," she said intensely. "Let them face a de la Croix, even if it be but a woman. You, Cyril, can go when you like. And I should not converse of fires, were I you. You did not distinguish yourself at the last one. Go ! Take all the servants, and go ! I shall remain in the home of my ancestors !" "If you are a fool, I am not !" cried Cyril angrily. "Come Jean, Amelie, Heloise. We will leave your mad mistress to her predestined fate." The cowering servants needed no second bidding. In an instant the Countess was alone in the room. She resumed her writing with a smile of contempt. The hours dragged by in the all but deserted chateau, and still the Countess kept at her self-appointed task. Her friends in need of a word of comfort, and more substantial aid, were innumerable. A dull murmur in the courtyard grew and grew until the Countess paused in her writing. She listened intently for a moment. "It is come," she said faintly, "and I am alone !" The door burst inward with a thunderous crash, and burly, brutal Carriere, Carriere, the leader of the Republican forces, stood leering at her in the embrasure. A shout of execration and rage went up from the soldiers and peasants behind him. Helene rose, and faced the motley throng. "May I ask," she demanded in a