Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/26

 more than he could bear, "you love me, Susette?"

She turned her face to him, lips moist and dewy with the yearnings of youth, a rich, ripe look of promise in her eves. "More than I can tell, mon adoré!"

Warm and tender, her slim arms were tight about his neck, he could feel the tears from her eyes on his cheek, her voice was full of gentleness and love as she repeated murmuringly: "Mon adoré, mon amoureux, mon precieux! O, Mardochée, je t'aime, je t'aime!"

He drew her to him, kissed her slowly, bending her head back against the sofa-arm, pillowing her neck in his bent arm. She whimpered softly, almost as in pain, became limp and yielding, then tightened her arms round his neck again, drawing him down to the lusciousness of satin-smooth red lips.

Afterwhiles they sat upon the sofa, hand in hand and waist in arm, and gazed into the alternately leaping and curtsying flames as if they could foreread the future in their flickering brightness. "We must be married very soon, my dear," said Mordecai. "Tomorrow, if possible. I will go to the mairie on my way to the bureau"

"Mon Dieu!" The hand Susette had raised to rearrange her misty, glowing hair was checked at her forehead. "We cannot—dare not marry, Mardochée!"

"Why not, my love? It will be simple"

"Non, non! Consider, if you please. I am Susanne Louvegny, ci-devant comtesse d'Aules. My father was beheaded on the guillotine, I myself am hors la loi—outside the law. To be recognized is to be arrested, to be arrested is to be condemned to death. They give us ci-devants no trial at the Tribunal, only sentence to the chopper. You see, m'ami, it is not possible. There is no birth certificate or baptismal record for me that you can give them, you dare not even tell them who I am!"

"But when we're married you will be a citizen of the United States. They will not dare"

"But certainly—when we are married! Until that time I am a citizeness of France, and subject to her laws, however savage they may be. Think you they would let you snatch me from them, cheat the chopper"

"By Jupiter!" The impact of his hand against his knee broke off her half-hysterical recital.

"What is it that you have, mon cher?"

"Our ship the Deborah, commanded by my brother Hezekiah, will be at Le Havre within the week. I'll send a message to him, asking him to bring her up the Seine. We can go in a closed coach to the piers, and once you are aboard her we'll defy the whole garde nationale to take you off again. When we are out of cannon-shot of land my brother as the master of the ship will marry us. You shall go home with me, petite Susette, home to America, and be 'Madame Voestone' in fact as well as reputation!"

Then for a long space they sat looking in the fire and held each other tightly. Words were superfluous. Two have no need of words when they are deeply, tremulously, wonderingly in love.

day the city quailed before a storm which threatened but forbore to strike. There were occasional grumblings of thunder, now and then a livid cicatrix of lightning scarred the sky, but the air hung heavy, breathless-still, as if in mute expectancy; the dry