adies when they entered. He was there,  he would have  told you, to perform
the duties of his office, not to give dancing-lessons.
     "Plougastel," he repeated after her,  without title, as if it  had been
the name of  a butcher or baker. He took down a heavy volume from a shelf on
his right, opened it and turned the pages. It was a sort of directory of his
section.  Presently he found  what  he  sought. "Comte  de Plougastel, Hotel
Plougastel, Rue du Paradis. Is that it?"
     "That is correct, monsieur," she answered, with what civility she could
muster before the fellow's affronting rudeness.
     There was  a long moment  of silence,  during  which he studied certain
pencilled entries  against  the name.  The sections  had been working in the
last few weeks much more systematically than was generally suspected.
     "Your husband  is with  you, madame?"  he asked  curtly, his eyes still
conning that page.
     "M. le Comte is not with me," she answered, stressing the title.
     "Not with you?"  He looked  up suddenly, and directed upon her a glance
in which suspicion seemed to blend with derision. "Where is he?"
     "He is not in Paris, monsieur.
     "Ab! Is he at Coblenz, do you think?"
     Madame  felt herself turning cold.  There was  something ominous in all
this. To what end  had the sections informed themselves so thoroughly of the
comings and goings of their inhabitants? What was preparing? She had a sense
of being trapped, of being taken in a net that had been cast unseen.
     "I do not know, monsieur," she said, her voice unsteady.
     "Of course not." He seemed to sneer. "No matter. And you  wish to leave
Paris also? Where do you desire to go?"
     "To Meudon."
     "Your business there?"
     The blood leapt to her  face. His  insolence was unbearable to a  woman
who in all  her life had never known anything but the utmost  deference from
inferiors  and equals alike. Nevertheless,  realizing that  she  was face to
face  with  forces  entirely  new,  she  controlled   herself,  stifled  her
resentment, and answered steadily.
     "I wish to conduct this lady, Mlle. de Kercadiou, back to her uncle who
resides there."
     "Is that all? Another day will do  for that, madame.  The matter is not
pressing."
     "Pardon, monsieur, to us the matter is very pressing."
     "You have not convinced me  of  it, and the barriers are closed to  all
who cannot  prove the  most urgent  and satisfactory reasons  for wishing to
pass.   You   will  wait,   madame,   until   the  restriction  is  removed.
Good-evening."
     "But, monsieur... "
     "Good-evening,  madame,"  he repeated significantly, a  dismissal  more
contemptuous and despotic than any royal "You have leave to go.
     Madame  went out  with  Aline. Both were quivering with  the anger that
prudence  had urged them  to suppress. They climbed  into the  coach  again,
desiring to be driven home.
     Rougane's  astonishment  turned into dismay when they told him what had
taken place. "Why not try the Hotel de Ville, madame?" he suggested.
     "After that? It would be useless. We must resign ourselves to remaining
in Paris until the barriers are opened again."
     "Perhaps it  will  not matter  to us either  way by then, madame," said
Aline.
     "Aline!" she exclaimed in horror.
     "Mademoiselle!" cried Rougane on the  same note. And then,  because  he
perceived that people detained in  this fashion  must  be in some danger not
yet discernible, but on that account more dreadful, he set his wits to work.
As they were approaching the  Hotel  Plougastel once more, he announced that
he had solved the problem.
     "A passport from without would do equally well," he announced. "Listen,
now, and trust to me. I will go back to Meudon at once. My father shall give
me two permits - one for myself alone, and another for  three persons - from
Meudon  to  Paris and back  to Meudon.  I reenter  Paris with my own permit,
which I  then  proceed to destroy,  and we leave together,  we three, on the
strength of the other one, representing ourselves as having come from Meudon
in the course of the day. It is quite simple,  after all. If I go at once, I
shall be back to-night."
     "But how will you leave?" asked Aline.
     "I? Pooh! As to  that, have no anxiety. My father  is Mayor  of Meudon.
There  are plenty who know  him. I will  go to  the Hotel de Ville, and tell
them what is, after all, true - that I am caught in  Paris by the closing of
the barriers,  and that my father is expecting  me home this  evening.  They
will pass me through. It is quite simple."
     His  confidence  uplifted  them again. The  thing seemed as easy as  he
represented it.
     "Then let  your  passport be for four, my friend,"  madame  begged him.
"There  is  Jacques,"  she explained, indicating  the footman  who had  just
assisted them to alight.
     Rougane departed confident of soon returning, leaving them to await him
with  the same confidence.  But the  hours  succeeded one another, the night
closed in, bedtime came, and still there was no sign of his return.
     They waited until midnight,  each pretending for the other's  sake to a
confidence  fully sustained, each invaded by vague premonitions of evil, yet
beguiling the time by playing tric-trac  in the great  salon, as if they had
not a single anxious thought between them.
     At last on the stroke of midnight, madame sighed and rose.
     "It will be for to-morrow morning," she said, not believing it.
     "Of course,"  Aline  agreed. "It would really have been impossible  for
him  to  have  returned  to-night.  And it  will  be  much better to  travel
to-morrow.  The journey  at so late an hour would  tire  you  so much,  dear
madame."
     Thus they made pretence.
     Early in the morning they were awakened by a din of bells - the tocsins
of the sections  ringing the alarm.  To their  startled  ears came later the
rolling  of drums, and at one time they heard the sounds of  a  multitude on
the march. Paris was  rising. Later still came the rattle of  small-arms  in
the distance  and  the deeper boom  of cannon. Battle was joined between the
men of  the  sections  and  the men of  the Court.  The  people  in arms had
attacked the Tuileries. Wildest rumours flew in  all directions, and some of
them found their way through the servants to the Hotel Plougastel,  of  that
terrible fight for the palace  which was to  end in the purposeless massacre
of all  those whom  the invertebrate monarch abandoned there, whilst placing
himself and his family under the protection of the Assembly.  Purposeless to
the end, ever adopting the course pointed out to him by evil counsellors, he
prepared for  resistance only  until the  need  for resistance really arose,
whereupon he ordered a surrender which  left  those who had stood by  him to
the last at the mercy of a frenzied mob.
     And  while this was  happening in the  Tuileries, the two women at  the
Hotel  Plougastel still waited for  the return of  Rougane,  though now with
ever-lessening  hope. And Rougane did not return. The affair  did not appear
so simple to the father as to the son. Rougane the elder was  rightly afraid
to lend himself to such a piece of deception.
     He went  with his  son  to inform M. de Kercadiou of what had happened,
and told him  frankly of the thing his son suggested, but which he dared not
do.
     M. de Kercadiou  sought to  move  him by intercessions and even  by the
offer of bribes. But Rougane remained firm.
     "Monsieur,"  he  said,  "if  it  were  discovered  against  me,  as  it
inevitably would be, I should, hang for it. Apart from that, and in spite of
my anxiety to do all in my power to serve you, it would be a breach of trust
such as I could not contemplate. You must not ask me, monsieur."
     "But what do  you conceive is going to happen?" asked the half-demented
gentleman.
     "It is war," said Rougane, who was well informed, as we have seen. "War
between the people and the Court. I am desolated that my warning should have
come too late.  But,  when  all is said, I do not think that you need really
alarm yourself. War will not  be made  on women. M.  de  Kercadiou clung for
comfort to  that assurance after the mayor and his son had  departed. But at
the back of his mind there remained the knowledge of the traffic in which M.
de  Plougastel was engaged. What if the  revolutionaries  were equally  well
informed? And most probably  they were. The  women-folk political  offenders
had  been known aforetime to suffer for the  sins of their men. Anything was
possible in a popular upheaval, and Aline would be exposed jointly with Mme.
de Plougastel.
     Late that night, as  he sat gloomily in his brother's library, the pipe
in which he had sought solace extinguished between his fingers, there came a
sharp knocking at the door.
     To the old seneschal of Gavrillac who went to open there stood revealed
upon the threshold a slim young  man in a dark olive surcoat,  the skirts of
which  reached  down  to  his  calves.  He  wore  boots,  buckskins,  and  a
small-sword, and  round his waist there was a tricolour sash,  in his hat  a
tricolour cockade, which gave him an official look extremely sinister to the
eyes of that old retainer of feudalism,  who shared to the full his master's
present fears.
     "Monsieur desires?" he asked, between respect and mistrust.
     And then a crisp voice startled him.
     "Why, Benoit! Name of a name! Have you completely forgotten me?"
     With a shaking hand the  old man raised the lantern he carried so as to
throw its light more fully upon that lean, wide-mouthed countenance.
     "M. Andre!" he cried. "M.Andre!" And then he looked at the sash and the
cockade, and hesitated, apparently at a loss.
     But  Andre-Louis stepped  past  him into the  wide vestibule, with  its
tessellated floor of black-and-white marble.
     "If my godfather has  not  yet  retired,  take  me  to him. If  he  has
retired, take me to him all the same."
     "Oh, but certainly, M. Andre - and I am sure he will be ravished to see
you. No, he  has  not yet retired.  This  way, M.  Andre;  this  way, if you
please."
     The returning Andre-Louis,  reaching Meudon  a half-hour  ago, had gone
straight to the mayor for some definite news  of  what might be happening in
Paris  that should either  confirm or dispel the ominous rumours that he had
met in ever-increasing volume as he approached the capital. Rougane informed
him that insurrection was imminent, that already  the sections had possessed
themselves  of  the  barriers, and that it was impossible for any person not
fully accredited to enter or leave the city.
     Andre-Louis bowed his head,  his  thoughts of the  gravest. He  had for
some  time perceived  the danger of this second  revolution  from within the
first, which might destroy everything that had been done, and give the reins
of power to a villainous faction that would plunge the country into anarchy.
The thing he had feared was more than  ever on the point of taking place. He
would  go on  at  once,  that  very  night, and  see  for  himself what  was
happening.
     And then, as he was leaving, he turned again to Rougane to ask if M. de
Kercadiou was still at Meudon.
     "You know him, monsieur?"
     "He is my godfather."
     "Your  godfather!  And you a representative! Why, then,  you may be the
very man he needs." And Rougane told him of his son's errand into Paris that
afternoon and its result.
     No more  was required. That  two  years ago  his godfather should  upon
certain terms  have refused him his house weighed for nothing at the moment.
He left his travelling carriage at the little inn and went straight to M. de
Kercadiou.
     And  M.  de  Kercadiou,  startled  in  such  an  hour  by  this  sudden
apparition, of one against whom he nursed a bitter grievance, greeted him in
terms almost  identical with those in which in that same room he had greeted
him on a similar occasion once before.
     "What do you want here, sir?"
     "To serve you if possible, my godfather," was the disarming answer.
     But it did not disarm  M. de Kercadiou.  "You have stayed  away so long
that I hoped you would not again disturb me."
     "I should not have ventured to disobey you now were it not for the hope
that I can be of service. I have seen Rougane, the mayor... "
     "What's that you say about not venturing to disobey?"
     "You forbade me your house, monsieur."
     M. de Kercadiou stared at him helplessly.
     "And is that why you have not come near me in all this time?"
     "Of course. Why else?"
     M. de Kercadiou continued to stare. Then he swore under his breath.  It
disconcerted him to have to deal with  a man who insisted upon taking him so
literally.  He  had expected that Andre-Louis would have come  contritely to
admit his fault and beg to be taken back into favour. He said so.
     "But how could I hope that you meant less than  you said, monsieur? You
were  so  very definite in your declaration.  What expressions of contrition
could have served me without a purpose of  amendment? And I had no notion of
amending. We may yet be thankful for that."
     "Thankful?"
     "I am  a representative. I have  certain powers. I  am very opportunely
returning  to Paris.  Can  I serve  you  where  Rougane  cannot?  The  need,
monsieur, would appear to be  very urgent if the half of what  I  suspect is
true. Aline should be placed in safety at once."
     M.  de Kercadiou surrendered unconditionally.  He  came  over and  took
Andre-Louis' hand.
     "My boy," he said, and he was visibly moved, "there is in you a certain
nobility that is not to  be denied. If I seemed harsh with you, then, it was
because I was fighting against your evil proclivities. I desired to keep you
out of the evil path of politics that have brought  this unfortunate country
into so terrible a pass. The enemy on the frontier; civil war about to flame
out at home. That is what you revolution. aries have done."
     Andre-Louis did not argue. He passed on.
     "About Aline?" he asked. And himself answered his own question: "She is
in  Paris,  and she  must be brought  out of  it at  once, before  the place
becomes a shambles, as well it  may once the passions that have been brewing
all these months are let  loose. Young  Rougane's  plan is good. At least, I
cannot think of a better one."
     "But Rougane the elder will not hear of it."
     "You mean  he will  not do it  on his own  responsibility. But  he  has
consented to do it on mine. I have left him a note over my signature  to the
effect that a safe-conduct for Mlle. de Kercadiou to  go to Paris and return
is issued by him in  compliance with orders from me. The powers I carry  and
of which I have satisfied him are his sufficient  justification for  obeying
me in this. I have left him that note on the understanding that he is to use
it only in an extreme case, for his own protection. In exchange he has given
me this safe-conduct."
     "You already have it!"
     M. de Kercadiou took the sheet of paper that Andre-Louis  held out. His
hand  shook. He  approached  it  to the  cluster  of candles burning on  the
console and screwed up his short-sighted eyes to read.
     "If  you  send that  to Paris by young  Rougane in  the  morning," said
Andre-Louis, "Aline  should be  here  by noon. Nothing, of course,  could be
done to-night without provoking suspicion. The hour  is  too  late. And now,
monsieur my godfather,  you know  exactly why I intrude in violation of your
commands. If there is any other way  in which I can serve  you, you have but
to name it whilst I am here."
     "But  there  is,  Andre. Did  not Rougane  tell  you  that  there  were
others... "
     "He mentioned Mme. de Plougastel and her servant."
     "Then why... ?" M. de Kercadiou broke off, looking his question.
     Very solemnly Andre-Louis shook his head.
     "That is impossible," he said.
     M.  de  Kercadiou's mouth fell open  in astonishment. "Impossible!"  he
repeated. "But why?"
     "Monsieur, I  can  do what  I  am doing for Aline  without offending my
conscience. Besides, for Aline I  would offend my conscience and  do it. But
Mme.  de Plougastel is in very different case. Neither Aline nor any of hers
have been concerned in counter-revolutionary work, which is the  true source
of the calamity that now threatens to overtake us. I can procure her removal
from Paris without self-reproach, convinced that I am doing nothing that any
one could censure,  or  that might become the subject of enquiries. But Mme.
de Plougastel is the wife of M.  le Comte de Plougastel, whom  all the world
knows to be an agent between the Court and the emigres."
     "That  is  no  fault  of  hers,"  cried  M.  de  Kercadiou through  his
consternation.
     "Agreed. But she may be called upon at any moment to establish the fact
that she is not  a party to these  manoeuvres.  It is known that she was  in
Paris to-day. Should she be sought to-morrow and should it be found that she
has gone, enquiries will certainly be made, from which it must result that I
have betrayed my trust, and abused my powers to serve personal ends. I hope,
monsieur, that you will understand that the risk is too great to be run  for
the sake of a stranger."
     "A stranger?" said the Seigneur reproachfully.
     "Practically a stranger to me," said Andre-Louis.
     "But she is not a stranger to me, Andre. She is my cousin and very dear
and valued friend. And, mon Dieu, what you say but increases the urgency  of
getting her out  of Paris.  She must  be rescued,  Andre, at all costs - she
must be rescued! Why, her case is infinitely more urgent than Aline's!"
     He stood a  suppliant before his godson,  very different now  from  the
stern man who had greeted him on his arrival.  His face  was pale, his hands
shook, and there were beads of perspiration on his brow.
     "Monsieur my godfather, I would do anything in reason. But I  cannot do
this.  To rescue her might  mean ruin for Aline and yourself as  well as for
me."
     "We must take the risk."
     "You have a right to speak for yourself, of course."
     "Oh,  and for you, believe me,  Andre, for you!" He came  close  to the
young man. "Andre, I implore you  to take my word  for  that, and to  obtain
this permit for Mme. de Plougastel."
     Andre  looked at him mystified. "This is fantastic," he  said.  "I have
grateful memories  of  the lady's interest in me for a few days once  when I
was a child, and again more recently  in Paris when she sought to convert me
to what she accounts the true political religion. But I do not risk  my neck
for her - no, nor yours, nor Aline's."
     "Ah! But, Andre... "
     "That  is my last word,  monsieur. It is growing late, and  I desire to
sleep in Paris."
     "No,  no!  Wait!"  The  Lord  of  Gavrillac  was  displaying  signs  of
unspeakable distress. "Andre, you must!"
     There was in this insistence and, still more, in the frenzied manner of
it, something so  unreasonable that Andre could not fail to assume that some
dark and mysterious motive lay behind it.
     "I must?" he echoed. "Why must I? Your reasons,monsieur?"
     "Andre, my reasons are overwhelming."
     "Pray allow me to be the judge of that." Andre-Louis' manner was almost
peremptory.
     The demand  seemed to  reduce M.  de Kercadiou to despair. He paced the
room, his hands tight-clasped behind him, his brow wrinkled. At last he came
to stand before his godson.
     "Can't you take my word for  it that these reasons  exist?" he cried in
anguish.
     "In such a  matter  as  this -  a matter that may involve my neck?  Oh,
monsieur, is that reasonable?"
     "I violate my word of honour, my oath, if I tell  you." M. de Kercadiou
turned  away, wringing his hands, his condition visibly piteous; then turned
again to Andre.  "But in this extremity,  in  this  desperate extremity, and
since you  so ungenerously insist, I shall have to tell  you. God help me, I
have no  choice. She will realize that when she knows. Andre, my boy... " He
paused again, a man afraid. He  set a hand on  his godson's shoulder, and to
his  increasing  amazement  Andre-Louis  perceived  that  over  those  pale,
short-sighted  eyes there was  a film of tears. "Mme. de  Plougastel is your
mother."
     Followed, for a long moment, utter silence. This thing that he was told
was not immediately understood. When understanding came at last Andre-Louis'
first impulse was  to  cry  out.  But he  possessed himself, and  played the
Stoic. He must ever be playing something. That was in his nature. And he was
true  to  his nature even in this supreme moment. He continued silent until,
obeying  that  queer  histrionic  instinct, he could trust  himself to speak
without emotion. "I see," he said, at last, quite coolly.
     His mind  was  sweeping back over the past.  Swiftly  he  reviewed  his
memories of Mme. de Plougastel,  her  singular if sporadic interest in  him,
the curious blend of affection and wistfulness which  her manner towards him
had always presented, and  at  last  he understood so  much that hithert had
intrigued him.
     "I see," he said again; and added now, "Of course, any but a fool would
have guessed it long ago."
     It was M. de Kercadiou who cried out, M.  de Kercadiou who recoiled  as
from a blow.
     "My God, Andre, of what are you made? You can take such an announcement
in this fashion?".
     "And how would  you have  me take it? Should it surprise me to discover
that I had a mother?  After all, a  mother is an indispensable necessity  to
getting one's self born."
     He sat  down abruptly, to conceal the too-revealing fact that his limbs
were  shaking.  He pulled  a handkerchief  from his  pocket to mop his brow,
which had grown damp. And then,quite suddenly, he found himself weeping.
     At the sight  of those tears streaming silently down that face that had
turned  so pale, M.  de Kercadiou came quickly  across  to him. He sat  down
beside him and threw an arm affectionately over his shoulder.
     "Andre, my poor lad," he murmured. "I... I was fool enough  to think ou
had no  heart. You deceived me with your infernal pretence, and now I see...
I see... " He was not sure what it was that he  saw, or else he hesitated to
express it.
     "I: is nothing, monsieur. I am  tired out, and... and I have a  cold in
the head." And then, finding the part beyond his power, he abruptly threw it
up, utterly abandoned all  pretence. "Why...  why has  there been  all  this
mystery?" he asked. "Was it intended that I should never know?"
     "I: was, Andre. It... it had to be, for prudence' sake."
     "Eut  why? Complete your confidence, sir.  Surely  you cannot  leave it
there. Having told me so much, you must tell me all."
     "'The reason, my boy, is that you were born some three years after your
mother's marriage with M.  de Plougastel,  some eighteen  months after M. de
Plougastel  had been away with the  army,  and some  four months before  his
return to his wife. It is a matter that M. de Plougastel has never suspeted,
and  for gravest family reasons must  never suspect.  That is why the utmost
secrecy has been preserved. That is why none was ever allowed to know.  Your
mother  came betimes  into  Brittany,  and under an assumed name spent  some
months  in the village of Moreau.  It was while she was there that  you were
born."
     Andre-Louis turned it over in his mind. He had dried his tears. And sat
now rigid and collected.
     "When  you say that none was ever  allowed to know, you are telling me,
of course, that you, monsieur... "
     "Oh, mon  Dieu, no!"  The  denial  came  in a violent  outburst. M.  de
Kercadiou sprang to his feet propelled from  Andre's side by the violence of
his emotions. It was as  if  the very suggestion filled him with  horror. "I
was the  only  other  one who knew. But it is not as you think,  Andre.  You
cannot imagine that I should lie to  you, that I should deny you if you were
my son?"
     "If you say that I am not, monsieur, that is sufficient."
     "You are not. I was Therese's cousin and also, as  she  well knew,  her
truest friend. She knew that she could  trust me; and it  was to me she came
for help  in her extremity. Once,  years  before, I  would have married her.
But, of  course, I am not the sort of man  a woman could love.  She trusted,
however, to my love for her, and I have kept her trust."
     "Then, who was my father?"
     "I don't know. She never told me. It was her secret, and I did not pry.
It is not in my nature, Andre."
     Andre-Louis got up, and stood silently facing M. de Kercadiou.
     "You believe me, Andre."
     "Naturally, monsieur;  and I am sorry, I am  sorry that  I am not  your
son.
     M. de Kercadiou gripped his godson's hand  convulsively,  and held it a
moment with no word spoken. Then as they fell away from each other again:
     "And now, what will you do, Andre?" he asked. "Now that you know?"
     Andre-Louis stood  awhile. considering,  then broke into  laughter. The
situation had its humours. He explained them.
     "What  difference  should  the knowledge make?  Is filial piety  to  be
called into existence by the mere announcement of relationship? Am I to risk
my  neck through lack  of circumspection  on  behalf of  a  mother  so  very
circumspect that  she  had  no  intention  of  ever  revealing herself?  The
discovery  rests upon the merest chance, upon a fall of the dice of Fate. Is
that to weigh with me?"
     "The decision is with you, Andre."
     "Nay, it is beyond me. Decide it who can, I cannot."
     "You mean that you refuse even now?"
     "I mean that I consent.  Since I cannot decide what it is that I should
do, it only remains for me to do what a son should. It is grotesque; but all
life is grotesque."
     "You will never, never regret it."
     "I hope not," said Andre. "Yet I think it very likely that I shall. And
now I had better see Rougane  again at once, and obtain from  him the  other
two permits required. Then perhaps it will be best that I take them to Paris
myself, in  the  morning. If you  will give me a  bed,  monsieur, I shall be
grateful. I... I confess that I am hardly in case to do more to-night."

        CHAPTER XIII. SANCTUARYIII


     Into  the  late  afternoon of  that  endless  day  of horror  with  its
perpetual  alarms,  its  volleying  musketry,  rolling  drums,  and  distant
muttering of angry multitudes, Mme. de Plougastel and  Aline sat  waiting in
that handsome house in the Rue du Paradis. It was no longer for Rougane they
waited. They realized  that, be  the reason what it might - and  by now many
reasons must no doubt exist - this friendly messenger would not return. They
waited without knowing for what. They waited for whatever might betide.
     At one time early in the afternoon the  roar of battle approached them,
racing swiftly  in their direction,  swelling each  moment  in volume and in
horror. It was the frenzied clamour of a multitude drunk with blood and bent
on destruction.  Near at hand that  fierce wave  of humanity checked in  its
turbulent progress. Followed blows of pikes upon  a door and imperious calls
to open, and thereafter came the rending of timbers, the shivering of glass,
screams of terror blending  with screams of rage, and, running through these
shrill sounds, the deeper diapason of bestial laughter.
     It was a  hunt of  two  wretched  Swiss  guardsmen  seeking blindly  to
escape. And they were  run to  earth  in a house in the  neighbourhood,  and
there cruelly done to death  by  that demoniac mob. The thing  accomplished,
the hunters,  male  and female, forming into a battalion, came swinging down
the Rue du Paradis, chanting the song of Marseilles - a song new to Paris in
those days:
     Allons, enfants de la patrie! Le jour de gloire est  arrive Contre nous
de la tyrannie L'etendard sanglant est 1eve.
     Nearer it came, raucously bawled  by some hundreds of  voices, a  dread
sound that had come so suddenly to displace at least temporarily the  merry,
trivial  air  of  the "Ca  ira!"  which hitherto had  been the revolutionary
carillon. Instinctively  Mme. de  Plougastel  and Aline clung to each other.
They had  heard the  sound  of  the  ravishing of  that other house  in  the
neighbourhood, without knowledge of the reason. What if now it should be the
turn of the Hotel Plougastel! There was no real cause to fear it, save  that
amid a  turmoil imperfectly understood and therefore the more awe-inspiring,
the worst must be feared always.
     The dreadful song so  dreadfully  sung, and the thunder of heavily shod
feet upon the roughly  paved street, passed on  and receded.  They  breathed
again, almost  as if a miracle  had saved them, to  yield  to fresh alarm an
instant later, when madame's young footman, Jacques, the most trusted of her
servants, burst  into their  presence  unceremoniously  with  a scared face,
bringing the announcement  that  a man who had  just climbed over the garden
wall professed  himself  a friend  of  madame's,  and desired to  be brought
immediately to her presence.
     "But  he looks  like  a sansculotte, madame," the staunch fellow warned
her.
     Her thoughts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane.
     "Bring him in," she commanded breathlessly.
     Jacques went out, to return presently accompanied by a  tall  man  in a
long, shabby, and very ample overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that was turned
down all round,  and adorned  by an enormous tricolour cockade.  This hat he
removed as he entered.
     Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his  hair, although now in
some disorder, bore signs of having been carefully dressed. It  was clubbed,
and it carried some lingering vestiges of powder. The young footman wondered
what it was in  the man's face, which was turned from him, that should cause
his mistress to out and recoil. Then he found himself dismissed abruptly  by
a gesture.
     The newcomer advanced to  the  middle of the salon, moving like  a  man
exhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned against a table,  across which
he  confronted  Mme. de Plougastel. And she  stood regarding him,  a strange
horror in her eyes.
     In  the  background, on  a settle  at  the  salon's far  end, sat Aline
staring  in  bewilderment and some fear  at a  face which, if unrecognizable
through the mask  of  blood and dust that smeared it, was  yet familiar. And
then the man spoke, and instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquis
de La Tour d'Azyr.
     "My dear friend," he was saying, "forgive me if I startled you. Forgive
me if  I thrust myself in  here without  leave, at such  a time, in  such  a
manner. But... you see how  it is with me. I am a fugitive. In the course of
my distracted flight, not knowing which way to turn for safety, I thought of
you. I told myself that if I could but safely reach your house, I might find
sanctuary."
     "You are in danger?"
     "In danger?"  Almost he  seemed  silently to  laugh  at the unnecessary
question. "If I were to show myself openly  in the streets just now, I might
with luck  contrive  to  live for  five  minutes!  My friend,  it has been a
massacre. Some few of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end, to be hunted
to death  in the streets.  I doubt if by this time a  single Swiss survives.
They had the worst of it, poor devils. And as  for us - my God! they hate us
more than they hate the Swiss. Hence this filthy disguise."
     He  peeled off the  shaggy greatcoat, and casting it from  him  stepped
forth in the black  satin that had been  the general livery of  the  hundred
knights of  the dagger who had rallied in the Tuileries that  morning to the
defence of their king.
     His coat was rent across the back, his neckcloth and the ruffles at his
wrists  were  torn  and bloodstained; with  his  smeared face and disordered
headdress he was terrible to  behold. Yet he contrived to carry himself with
his habitual easy  assurance, remembered to kiss  the trembling  hand  which
Mme. de Plougastel extended to him in welcome.
     "You  did  well  to  come  to me,  Gervais,"  she said.  "Yes, here  is
sanctuary  for the present. You will be  quite safe, at least for as long as
we  are  safe. My servants are entirely  trustworthy. Sit down and  tell  me
all."
     He obeyed  her,  collapsing almost into the armchair  which she  thrust
forward,  a man  exhausted, whether by physical exertion or by nerve-strain,
or both. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped some of  the blood
and dirt from his face.
     "It is soon told." His tone was bitter with the  bitterness of despair.
"This,  my dear, is the end of us. Plougastel is lucky  in  being across the
frontier at  such a  time. Had  I not  been fool enough to trust  those  who
to-day have proved  themselves utterly  unworthy of  trust,  that is where I
should be myself. My remaining in Paris is the crowning folly of a life full
of follies and mistakes. That I should come to you in my hour of most urgent
need adds point to it." He laughed in his bitterness.
     Madame moistened her dry lips. "And... and now?" she asked him.
     "It  only  remains to get  away as  soon  as may  be,  if it  is  still
possible. Here in France there is  no longer any room for us - at least, not
above ground. To-day has proved it." And then he  looked up at her, standing
there beside  him  so pale and timid, and he smiled. He patted the fine hand
that rested  upon the  arm of his chair. "My dear  Therese, unless you carry
charitableness  to the length of giving me to drink, you will see me  perish
of thirst  under  your eyes before ever the  canaille has a chance to finish
me."
     She started. "I should have thought of it!" she cried in self-reproach,
and she turned quickly. "Aline," she begged, "tell Jacques to bring... "
     "Aline!" he echoed,interrupting, and swinging round in his  turn. Then,
as  Aline  rose into view,  detaching  from her  background, and  he at last
perceived her, he heaved himself abruptly to his weary legs again, and stood
there  stiffly   bowing  to  her   across  the  space  of  gleaming   floor.
"Mademoiselle, I had  not suspected your presence,"  he said, and  he seemed
extraordinarily ill-at-ease, a man startled, as if caught in an illicit act.
     "I  perceived  it,  monsieur,"  she  answered, as  she  advanced  to do
madame's  commission.  She paused before  him.  "From my  heart, monsieur, I
grieve that we should meet again in circumstances so very painful."
     Not since the day of his duel with Andre-Louis - the day which had seen
the  death and burial of his last hope of winning her  - had they stood face
to face.
     He checked as if on  the point of answering her. His glance strayed  to
Mme. de Plougastel, and,  oddly reticent for one who could  be very glib, he
bowed in silence.
     "But sit, monsieur, I beg. You are fatigued."
     "You  are  gracious to observe it. With your permission, then." And  he
resumed his seat.  She continued on her way to the door and  passed out upon
her errand.
     When  presently  she returned  they had  almost  unaccountably  changed
places. It was Mme. de Plougastel who was seated in that armchair of brocade
and gilt, and M. de  La Tour d'Azyr  who, despite his lassitude, was leaning
over the back of it talking earnestly, seeming by his attitude to plead with
her. On Aline's entrance he broke off instantly and moved  away, so that she
was  left with  a  sense of having  intruded. Further she observed that  the
Countess was in tears.
     Following her came presently the diligent Jacques, bearing a tray laden
with food and wine. Madame poured for her guest, and he drank a long draught
of the Burgundy, then begged,  holding forth  his grimy hands, that he might
mend his appearance before sitting down to eat.
     He was led away  and valeted by  Jacques,  and when  he returned he had
removed  from  his  person the  last vestige  of  the rough  handling he had
received.  He looked almost  his  normal  self, the disorder  in his  attire
repaired, calm and dignified and courtly in his bearing, but  very pale  and
haggard  of  face,  seeming suddenly to  have increased  in  years,  to have
reached in appearance the age that was in fact his own.
     As  he  ate and drank - and this  with appetite, for as he told them he
had not tasted food since early morning - he entered into the details of the
dreadful events of the  day, and gave them the particulars of his own escape
from the  Tuileries when all was seen to be lost and when  the Swiss, having
burnt  their last  cartridge, were submitting to  wholesale massacre at  the
hands of the indescribably furious mob.
     "Oh,  it was all most ill  done," he ended  critically. "We were  timid
when we  should  have  been  resolute,  and resolute at last when it was too
late.  That is the  history of our side from the beginning of this  accursed
struggle. We  have lacked proper leadership throughout, and now - as  I have
said already - there is an end  to us. It but remains  to escape, as soon as
we can discover how the thing is to be accomplished."
     Madame told him of the hopes that she had centred upon Rougane.
     It lifted him out of his gloom. He was disposed to be optimistic.
     "You are wrong to have  abandoned that hope," he assured  her. "If this
mayor is so well disposed, he certainly can do as his son promised. But last
night it would have  been too late for him to have reached you,  and to-day,
assuming that  he had come to Paris, almost impossible for him to win across
the streets from the other side. It  is most likely that he will yet come. I
pray that he may; for the knowledge that you and Mlle. de  Kercadiou are out
of this would comfort me above all."
     "We should take you with us," said madame.
     "Ah! But how?"
     "Young  Rougane  was  to bring  me permits for  three persons -  Aline,
myself, and my footman, Jacques. You would take the place of Jacques."
     "Faith, to get  out of Paris, madame,  there is  no  man whose  place I
would not take." And he laughed.
     Their  spirits  rose with his  and their flagging hopes revived. But as
dusk descended again upon  the city,  without any sign of the deliverer they
awaited, those hopes began to ebb once more.
     M. de  La  Tour  d'Azyr  at  last pleaded weariness,  and begged  to be
permitted  to withdraw  that he might  endeavour to  take  some rest against
whatever might have to  be faced in  the immediate future. When he had gone,
madame persuaded Aline to go and lie down.
     "I will  call you, my  dear, the  moment he arrives," she said, bravely
maintaining  that  pretence  of  a  confidence  that  had  by  now  entirely
evaporated.
     Aline kissed her  affectionately, and departed,  outwardly so  calm and
unperturbed as to  leave  the  Countess wondering whether  she  realized the
peril by  which  they were surrounded, a peril  infinitely increased by  the
presence  in that house of a  man  so  widely known and detested as M. de La
Tour d'Azyr, a  man who was probably being sought for by his enemies at this
moment.
     Left alone, madame lay down on a couch in the salon itself, to be ready
for any emergency.  It  was a hot  summer night, and the glass doors opening
upon  the luxuriant garden  stood  wide to admit  the air. On that  air came
intermittently  from  the  distance   sounds  of  the  continuing   horrible
activities of the populace, the aftermath of that bloody day.
     Mme.  de Plougastel lay there, listening to those sounds for upwards of
an hour, thanking Heaven that for the present at least the disturbances were
distant, dreading lest at any moment they should occur nearer at hand,  lest
this  Bondy section in which her hotel was situated should  become the scene
of  horrors  similar  to  those  whose echoes  reached  her ears  from other
sections away to the south and west.
     The couch occupied by the Countess lay in shadow; for all the lights in
that  long salon had  been extinguished with  the exception  of a cluster of
candles in a massive silver candle branch placed  on a round marquetry table
in the middle of the room - an island of light in the surrounding gloom.
     The timepiece on the overmantel chimed melodiously the hour of ten, and
then, startling in the suddenness with which it broke the immediate silence,
another sound vibrated through the house, and brought madame to her feet, in
a  breathless mingling of hope and dread. Some one  was knocking  sharply on
the door  below. Followed  moments of  agonized suspense, culminating in the
abrupt  invasion  of the room by the footman Jacques. He  looked round,  not
seeing his mistress at first.
     "Madame! Madame!" he panted, out of breath.
     "What  is  it, Ja