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Pluck up your spirits, citoyenne! one gets used to everything in this world, even to the guillotine!" While he was speaking and pushing at the same time, Trudaine felt a piece of paper slip quickly between his neck and his cravat. "Courage!" he whispered, pressing his sister's hand, as he saw her shuddering under the assumed brutality of Lomaque's joke.
Come, it is high treason to Queen Nature to remain indoors on such a morning as this." Without waiting for her to reply, he put on her hood, drew her arm through his, and led the way out. Lomaque's face grew grave as he followed them. "I am glad I only showed the bright side of my budget of news in her presence," thought he. "She is not well at heart yet. I might have hurt her, poor thing!
Thus it happened that, in the office of the Secret Police at Paris, and under the Reign of Terror, Lomaque's old master was, nominally, his master still the superintendent to whom he was ceremonially accountable, in public the suspected man, whose slightest words and deeds he was officially set to watch, in private.
"Pray, is a sub-professor of chemistry supposed to hold the rank of a gentleman?" asked Madame Danville, without the slightest appearance of any special interest in Lomaque's news. "Of course not," replied her son, with a sarcastic laugh; "he is expected to work and make himself useful. What gentleman does that?" "Charles!" exclaimed the old lady, reddening with anger.
From the day of their arrest, Rose and her brother, partly through the influence of a bribe, partly through Lomaque's intercession, had been confined together in one cell; and together they now awaited the dread event of the morrow. To Rose that event was death death, to the thought of which, at least, she was now resigned.
He took a turn or two in silence then stopped at the open window, looking out on what little glimpse the street afforded him of the sunset sky. "This time five years," he said, "Trudaine was talking to me on that bench overlooking the river; and Sister Rose was keeping poor hatchet-faced old Lomaque's cup of coffee hot for him!
Lomaque's eyes grew weaker than ever, and winked incessantly as he uttered this apostrophe. At the end, he threw up his hands again, and blinked inquiringly all round him, in mute appeal to universal nature.
Having read so far, the police agent placed his papers on the writing-table, waited a moment for orders, and, receiving none, went out. No change came over the sadness and perplexity of Lomaque's face. He still beat his nails anxiously on the writing-table, and did not even look at the second agent as he ordered the man to read his report.
I apologize, Monsieur Lomaque, for having thoughtlessly embarrassed you by questions which I had no right to ask. Let us return to the house I will show you the way." Lomaque's lips opened, then closed again; he bowed uneasily, and his sallow complexion whitened for a moment.
You have lived many years in Danville's service, Monsieur Lomaque; have you" he hesitated for a moment, then continued, looking the land-steward full in the face "have you found him a good and kind master?" Lomaque's thin lips seemed to close instinctively at the question, as if he were never going to speak again. He bowed Trudaine waited he only bowed again. Trudaine waited a third time.
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