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After three years of repose, if it pleases God to afflict us again, I can bear the trial calmly; and, if need be, can strengthen her to bear it calmly, too. I say again, Lomaque, speak at once, and speak out! I know your news is bad, for I know beforehand that it is news of Danville." "You are right; my bad news is news of him." "He has discovered the secret of our escape from the guillotine?"
He ran to the window and looked out eagerly. "Who opposes me?" reiterated Danville. "Hark!" exclaimed Lomaque, raising his hand. "Silence, and listen!" The heavy, dull tramp of men marching together became audible as he spoke. Voices humming low and in unison the Marseillaise hymn, joined solemnly with the heavy, regular footfalls.
It is found difficult to gain certain information about the person or persons visited by Trudaine without having recourse to an arrest. Order thereupon given to watch and wait for the present. The office of watching Trudaine is then taken out of the hands of the undersigned, and is confided to his comrade, Magloire. Signed, PICARD. Countersigned, LOMAQUE."
"True!" exclaimed the general; "the man is right let him be heard." "There is no help for it," said Lomaque, looking at Trudaine; "leave it to me it is fittest that I should speak. I was present," he continued, in a louder voice, "at the trial of Citizen Trudaine and his sister. They were brought to the bar through the denunciation of Citizen Danville.
Saying this, Lomaque handed certain sealed and docketed papers to the other men waiting in the room, who received them in silence, bowed, and went out. Innocent spectators might have thought them clerks taking bills of lading from a merchant.
Thus it happened, by a curious coincidence, that just as Lomaque was blowing out his candles at the office Rose was lighting the reading-lamp at her brother's lodgings. Five years of disappointment and sorrow had sadly changed her to outward view.
Suddenly there was a faint little tap at the room door, and eight or ten men evidently familiars of the new French Inquisition quietly entered, and ranged themselves against the wall. Lomaque nodded to two of them. "Picard and Magloire, go and sit down at that desk. I shall want you after the rest are gone."
"A man unworthy of credit," cried Danville, speaking audibly for the first time, and darting a look of deadly hatred at Lomaque. "An agent of police under Robespierre." "And in that capacity capable of answering questions which refer to the transactions of Robespierre's tribunals," remarked the ex-chief agent, with his old official self-possession.
"Poor, lost creature! ah, poor, lost creature!" muttered Lomaque to himself, sighing again, and shifting uneasily from side to side, in his mangy old leathern armchair. Apparently, Magloire was not accustomed to sighs, interruptions, and expressions of regret from the usually imperturbable chief agent. He looked up from his papers with a stare of wonder.
I have heard, accidentally, through the employer whom I have been serving since we parted, that your old house by the river-side is to let again." Rose started from her chair. "Oh, Louis, if we could only live there once more! My flower-garden?" she continued to Lomaque. "Cultivated throughout," he answered, "by the late proprietor." "And the laboratory?" added her brother.
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