"You have indeed proved yourself a loyal friend."

"More than that," he exclaimed; "it was more than loyalty, it was worship! Madame, believe me your name has always been to me a sacred adoration, a passion, an affection beyond expression. Do you doubt it? Know that I loved you from the first moment I saw you in the house of the Princess de Poix. I loved you, I adored you secretly, I sought for a favourable time to declare my passion."

Her eyes opened wide as she listened, and she would have given worlds to escape, yet her feeling was mainly of pity.

"This is very unfortunate. Calm yourself, Abbe. I will ever have a lively feeling of gratefulness for your devotion. Think of me on those terms."

"Ah, Madame, those were the only terms which might have been possible in former days; but they do not belong to the new regime. We are all equal now. Nothing will satisfy me short of possessing you entirely."

"Abbe, you are excited."

"No, citizeness, I have long been determined you shall be my mate." She shrank from the word and the uncanny passion of his gaze.

"When you will have reflected a few hours you will see that this is impossible."

"What! impossible? And why impossible? Ah, yes, I know, it is because of your pretty-faced lover Repentigny. I know all about that. I could have crushed him between my fingers; and I will crush him yet. What!—that man between myself and you! Why, then, did I bring you here? Was it to allow his interference with my object? After all I have done for you, am I to be met with answers of this sort?"

"I appreciate entirely your services, Abbe; they are too great to be underrated."

"They shall be more, citizeness. In these days it is my turn to dictate."

"Am I to understand that this has been your aim all along?"

He hesitated, but replied boldly, "It has, and were it not for that, I might long ago have pointed out both you and your doll-head lover to the Committee of Public Safety."

"Then your whole service has been abstention from positive treachery for your own ends?"

"You dare me? Caution, citizeness! You are in my power."

"In your power? You are a coward as well as a knave, then?"

"Remember still more," he hissed, losing all control of himself, "that your lover also is in my power; he is captured."

"My God! you have brought us to this!" she cried.

The door creaked and the Admiral entered.

"Be off, you cur!" said he, standing sternly over the Abbe, who shrank as if struck. "Go to your work, you——"

A look of terror upon his countenance, Jude precipitated himself through the doorway.

The Admiral closed it, and returning, sat down by the candle and began to talk to Cyrene. Seeing his features so close and large and accentuated by the candle-light, their coarseness and horror filled her with wonder.

"So that fellow boasts of his fidelity!" he exclaimed, in a repulsively modulated and familiar tone. "What a wealth of tenderness such a kidnapping shows! Possibly you knew his profession, citizeness?—that of salaried spy. Your protector he claims to be? Excellent—when he could not turn a straw in your favour. He has deprived you of your freedom; that was easier in these times. I, on the other hand," he added, smiling yet more hideously, "am here to return it to you."

"I thank you," she replied wearily, without hope.

"I shall reveal to you the true reason of your immunity for so long from the wrath of the people. It was because of Repentigny, not of yourself. I arranged it, and you were then unknown to me. Through him Bec and Caron, two friends of the people, had died six years ago, in the days of the tyrant. It was I, as avenger, not the worm Jude as lover, who watched over your household in the Rue Honore, reserving Repentigny for prolonged punishment. It was I whose power surrounded you as it has surrounded all Paris." He paused proudly.

"Citizeness, last night I saw you for the first time. Your wonderful courage, your astonishing beauty, overcame the most martial of hearts."

She started and shivered violently. Was she to endure two proposals within the hour, from such revolting creatures, and at what violence would their outrages end?

"Come," he said, offering to embrace her. She started back in terror.

"Do not tremble," he went on patronisingly; "you have nothing to fear from me, everything to expect. I am able to give you whatever you ask—mansions, carriages, jewels, pleasures, unlimited wealth, unlimited power. These are in my hands. I rule Paris—yes, France—and shall rule Europe. You shall sit by my side, and the whole world shall serve you. They shall fear or love you as you will, but I am able to see that they obey you or sink under my hand. Do not fear the squalor of these brutes whom I govern; you shall see nothing of them, for we shall sit upon the heights of the Revolution. Around us Paris shall always be gay and fascinating. Tell me your slightest wish, citizeness; it shall be yours."

"You will grant me a wish?" she exclaimed.

"Assuredly," he answered.

"Take me, then," said she, "to him you call Repentigny."

"Repentigny or Lecour?" he said, pointing to the name. "Citizeness, he is unworthy of you—totally unworthy."

"Maligner!"

"Keep your coolness, Madame; the man has long deceived you. The story that he is a plebeian is true. I can prove it."

"I asked you nothing of that sort; take me—only take me to him. Keep your promise."

"Very well, citizeness, there is but one condition. He is in the Conciergerie—in going to him you must, like him, be committed to be condemned."

"Gladly! gladly! Take me to him—take me to him—for the love of heaven."

"I love not heaven very much, citizeness, but, curse you, you seem fool enough to be granted what you ask. Look out of this door."

Obeying, she saw that a crowd of Sans-culottes had filled the shop.

Carmagnoled and sabred, they lounged in slothful consultation and obscured the air with bad tobacco-smoke. On the Admiral opening the door, they rose in a disorderly way and made him a sort of salute.

"Arrest her," he ordered, beckoning the two foremost and waving his skinny hand back to Cyrene. They came forward and grasped her arms.

"To the Conciergerie!" he said, "and each of you answers for her with your head."

As terrified as she, the two guards tied her hands and marched her off through the Street of the Hanged Man.

In times of great misery strange things bring us happiness; the thought of her condemnation to death lifted her like an aerial tide, because being with Germain went with it.



CHAPTER LII

THE SUPREME EXACTITUDE

Whoever passed within the walls of the Conciergerie was counted lost. Of the prisons of the Revolution, it was that to which the accused were transferred from the others on the eve of sentence; and underneath it was the hall of the pretended court infamous to all time as "the Tribunal of Blood." The fiacre containing Germain and the National Guards in whose charge Hache placed him, was followed by the mob to the doors, and at times it appeared as if he would certainly be torn away and hanged to a lantern rope. In front of the Conciergerie, whose portal was lit luridly by two torches, a delighted audience of Sans-culottes received his approach with clapping.

"Another!" they shouted.

And, as an arrest was brought in from the opposite direction just afterwards, they clapped again and repeated their shout of "Another!"

His guards dragged him into the presence of the concierge, who eyed him from his arm-chair with a drunken glance.

"Dungeon," he muttered.

With a banging of bolts and a creaking of doors, two turnkeys led Lecour down into a region of darkness. The turnkeys, like their chief, were surly sots. They took him along a low passage where mastiffs which patrolled it eyed him, threw back a cell door, thrust him in, and disappeared with their lanterns.

Shut in by low, dark walls, and a roof and floor of stone, reeking with damp and filth, the cell, though but twenty feet by ten or twelve, was already the habitation of at least a score of persons.

Their features could not be easily discerned, since the only light in the obscurity was that of a single candle.

"Comrade, the floor is soft," exclaimed one of the group nearest him—a man of one eye lying on a pile of straw. "Let me present you to our confrere, the parricide."

"Shut your gob, thief," shouted a voice, and a heavy scuffle ensued.

Germain leaned against the wall to recover his nerves.

The other inmates had been holding a mock revolutionary trial and condemning one of their number to execution. Some acted the part of judges, some of jury-men, two of guards.

The man on trial turned indignantly on the criminals who had first accosted Lecour.

"I pray you, Monsieur," said he courteously to the latter, "Do not take that for your reception here. Those men are the disgrace of the cell. The rest of us have been used to a happier condition. Let us introduce ourselves. I am the Baron de Grancey; my friend, the judge president, is the Count de Bellecour."

Germain's surprise would have been great had he been less in misery. As it was he was surprised at nothing. Here it was but another stab in his heart. Unable to answer he sat down on a stone bench.

"Friends, we must change the diversion," Grancey said sympathetically. "Perhaps our comrade might feel better over a hand at picquet."

"Ten straws a point!" exclaimed Bellecour. "Dame, it seems to me I know his face. Where have I met you, sir?"

"De Lincy, pardieu!" Grancey echoed, scrutinising the new-comer's features. "Friend Germain, this is a sorry place to welcome you, but you will find it brighter than you think; there are wit, forgetfulness, society, and some happiness, even in the Conciergerie. Wait until you get up to the corridor to-morrow; you will meet enough of your friends to hold a respectable reception."

Still Germain could not answer. They did not realise his sorrow and embarrassment in the presence of the old friends to whose friendship he felt he had no right. His head remained bent. Of a sudden the candle flickered out and relieved him of the need of speaking. They withdrew wondering to their pile of straw.

He did not move from the bench where he sat. Soon, except for the heavy breathing of his companions, silence enveloped the place. He became absorbed in anxious imaginings.

What had happened when Cyrene and Dominique returned to the house? What accidents overtook them at the Hotel de Ville? Where was she? What were her thoughts at that moment? And what her sufferings? Then a picture flitted across his consciousness of the early days of their meeting, the life at Fontainebleau, the charm of old Versailles. At the memory of that taste of a beautiful existence, an unearthly, sorrowful, prophetic longing came over him, not for himself but for others, for a clime where falsity, grief, change, and pride should be winnowed completely away from loveliness. He dreamt a world to come wherein the poor, the low-born, the deformed, yes, the debased children of crime itself should become of strong and perfect forms, of sensitive and rich artistic sense, wealthy as imagination in castles, parks, and solitudes, pure and keen of honour, spiritually sweet of thought, and so live serene for ever, for ever, for ever.

As morning grew, a dim light became perceptible from the corridor, and the prisoners one by one awoke. But Lecour was so weary that he fell asleep on the bench.

His shoulder was roughly shaken. "Stand up," said a turnkey. Germain opened his eyes and staggered to his feet.

"Salute the President of the Commune, you——" Before him was a short man in carmagnole and sabre, whom the other prisoners eyed with resentment and alarm.

Lecour bowed.

"You have met me before," the stranger said mockingly. "Once in the Royal hunting grounds of Fontainebleau. It was accidental. Perhaps I should not presume on the acquaintance."

Lecour perfectly recalled the visitor to the cave. That face once seen could never be forgotten, and he was overcome by the ominousness of the meeting. However, he recovered enough to answer sternly—

"Take your revenge; my neck is in your power."

"Judgment must be pronounced on you first. Listen to your judgment, Sieur de Lincy, or Repentigny. Inasmuch as, years ago, you hunted brave men who through you were condemned to death, which they suffered on the wheel; inasmuch as you wickedly murdered the starving peasants of the parishes of Eaux Tranquilles while in the pursuit of liberty; inasmuch as you resisted the sovereign people and sided with the cut-throats of Versailles, when you participated in the crimes of the Bodyguard; inasmuch as you have been of the party of conspirators against the Revolution, and have plotted with the tyrant Capet and his widow for the Counter-revolution; inasmuch as you are a suspect, inasmuch as you are an emigre; inasmuch as you are a rich and an aristocrat; inasmuch as you, Germain Lecour, son of Francois Xavier Lecour, peasant of Canada, and grandson of a butcher of Paris, did thus oppress the people without the excuse of hereditary illusion, but were a cheat and adventurer sprung from their own bosom; inasmuch as in order to do so you have broken many laws of the land and natural rights of mankind, have outraged the sacred names of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and have brought, especially upon yourself, the retribution of that Order of the Galley-on-Land, part of which was assembled before you in the cave of Fontainebleau; know now then, for the first time, that through all these dealings you have been tracked by them in your every movement; that your misdeeds were collected, not forgotten; that our vengeance was on your path and waited but the time that suited us; that to hundreds unknown to you it will be a day of feasting to see you die; that they will drink wine for your blood and eat bread for your flesh, and when your head drops into the basket, they will regret the days of tyranny for this only—that the humanity of these times does not allow of breaking you in turn on the wheel."

"You are frank," returned Germain bitterly.

The Admiral was taken aback. He had counted on more effect for his harangue.

"I have one more 'inasmuch,'" said he, with a sting in his tone and a gleam in his eye. "Inasmuch as by your imposture you deceived and misled a heart too pure and lofty for such as you to have dared towards——"

This shaft was aimed to strike deep, and so it did. Germain's defiant bearing fell, he dropped his head and groaned.

"Strike him!" roared Grancey. "You must die anyway. Strike, in default of a sword to run him through!"

"He dares not!" the Admiral exclaimed to the group of aristocrats. "You take him for one of yourselves. You are his dupes like the others."

"You admit this inasmuch?" he inquired triumphantly of Lecour.

"It is true, true, true," moaned Germain. "I may not deny it—the greatest crime of all my crimes."

The Admiral turned with a snort to Lecour's former companions. They were aghast.

"Had he denied it here are the proofs, absolutely beyond question!" the Admiral exclaimed, waving the Record, which he held in his hand.

"By the saints! what a conclusion," Bellecour exclaimed, curling his lip. As for Grancey he slowly turned his back, threw himself down on the straw on his face, and did not move. The Admiral again faced Germain.

"Shall I tell you something?"

Lecour's heart leaped. His eyes bespoke his suspense. Everything this man had to say seemed of such import that what went before faded for the moment.

"She is here."

"Here? Merciful God! alas, alas, poor Cyrene!"

The Admiral allowed him some moments. Ultimately he said, eyeing him keenly—

"You love her—would you like to save her?"

"Is there a hope?" Lecour said hoarsely, looking up with bloodshot eyes.

"Certainly, if you will do what I demand."

"Anything God will permit."

"The condition is this. That you make her with your own lips, in my presence, a confession of your imposture, of which, remember, I besides hold the proofs. Otherwise she dies to-morrow. Are you willing?" And the Admiral bent eagerly towards him with eyes full of flaming lights.

Lecour's heart stopped. His head flushed to bursting, the shame of years overcame him. His assent was expressed by more a groan than a word. The frightful thought was that she would repulse him for ever.

Yes, that too must be faced and done with—bitterness of bitterness. The old dream so marvellously won by deception must be shattered in every point. The Eternal Justice said to him: "NO MAN WHO HAS PROFITED BY A WRONG SHALL KEEP ITS FRUITS." Ah, what fruit of fruits, her love!

"It will finish him with her," the Admiral muttered, watching him. But Lecour did not hear. The Sans-culotte President rapped on the iron door with his boot, a turnkey replied, and in a few minutes four of these men appeared with Cyrene. As soon as she saw Germain she clasped her hands to her bosom and uttered a strange cry, a cry full of wild gladness and fierce agony, such as a soul writhing in the flames of purgatory might give at a sudden opening of the gates of both heaven and hell, and she sprang forward to press him to her breast.

Not such was the will of the Admiral. As quick as she, he interposed himself, and standing in front of Germain grasped her arm and said to her firmly—

"This fellow has something to say to you first."

Then, turning to Lecour, who stood with head down and feelings worse than those of his condemnation to death—

"Speak, butcher's grandson!"

He withdrew a step to allow Germain to face Cyrene.

The condemned man fell upon his knees and broke into sobs.

"Speak, housekeeper's son!" the Admiral cried exultantly.

"You are a devil!" screamed Cyrene to him, and bent down her arms to Germain.

To her bitter surprise the latter shrank back, and seizing her hand covered it with kisses instead.

"No," he sobbed, "no, Madame Baroness; it is all true—I am not your equal. I am baseborn, an impostor, an adventurer, the son of the peasant and the servant, the grandson of the butcher. I am no de Lincy nor Repentigny. My titles were false, my credit stolen, my position came to me by accident, and my defence was one long falsehood. De Lery was right. In him I wronged a man of honour, and my retribution is the judgment of God. Forgive me all the awful wrong I have done you. Forgive me as a creature whose only excuse has been an irresistible worship of even your footsteps."

"Stop!" the Admiral cried. "Citizeness, ponder your treatment by this varlet, who has deceived you, besmirched your life, and contaminated your hand. Another career is yours; leave him to his punishment."

The words of the two men reached her, but their meaning was not credible. Her lover—her Germain, her knight—a deceiver, an impostor? She could not realise it. Then the truth of the scene rushed over her; its logic became inescapable.

"Oh," she wailed in one long, agonised moan, sobbing and writhing in the intensity of her torture, "how can I bear this?"

"Come," said the Admiral, but she was oblivious to all except the storm of her distress.

"Come," repeated the Admiral, but she heard not.

"Come," repeated he once more impatiently; but her tear-filled eyes were fixed upon Germain. The horror of his falsity was strong within her, but his chivalry and tenderness throughout their long association could not be so quickly forgotten, nor the bonds of her affection so instantly blotted out. The mystery of his long sorrow dawned upon her, and his utter self-accusation appealed to her pity. Their differences of rank became as nothing.

"Come away," said the Admiral again, with soft-uttered persuasiveness.

Cyrene's nature, in those moments, had felt, thought, concluded with lightning swiftness. Her soul swept through a great arc of intuition.

"No, no, there is something I do not understand!" she cried. "My Germain, God has made you for me. You loved me and were led astray, but you are honourable and faithful in the sight of heaven, my eternal love. Let us kiss each other. Let us press each other to our breasts and die; in a few hours we shall be together for ever."

Before the Admiral could prevent it they were clasped in a passionate, feverish, last embrace.

"Very well," the Admiral sneered frigidly. "I keep my promises. Apothecary's apprentice, to-day you die. As for you, citizeness, I give you your freedom."

"I reject it—I will die with him," she answered.

"Not at all," he returned. "I promised him your liberty. I keep my promises."

"Wretch! you would separate the betrothed from the dying?"

"Go, beloved," said Germain, releasing her. "It is just that I should die, but not you. I shall love you in the grave. Remember not my errors."

"No, I will never leave you, Germain. Oh, Germain, I will die with you."

"Take the woman off!" growled the Admiral to the turnkeys. They obeyed him instantly.

Germain rushed after them to the door of the cell, but it was closed upon him, and he caught only a shadow through the grating and heard her last cry of grief.



CHAPTER LIII

RETRIBUTION ACCOMPLISHED

When Cyrene was pushed out of the outer portal of the prison she was met by her good friend the patriot Hugues la Tour.

"Do not despair," said he. "My influence is great; he shall yet be saved."

"Oh, for the love of God, try, citizen," she sobbed. Supporting her he signed for a fiacre and drove her to his room not far away, where he left her with the housekeeper, and bidding her trust in him, flew back and obtained an interview with Lecour in his cell. He explained the object of his visit and the history of his connection with Cyrene.

"And now I am come to return her life for life," he ended.

"But mine is not worth it," Germain answered soberly. "Save hers. How can you risk yourself for me? I was once the cause of your condemnation."

"What matters that. It was but what was believed right at the time. In our glorious Revolution we do not think of revenge; we only seek to strike at the enemies of human rights. You are not really an aristocrat. Plead that before the judges: your liberty will not be hard for me to obtain."

"Noble-hearted man——"

"Take care—the word 'noble' is forbidden."

"You are generous, citizen. My conscience tells me it would be base to do as you urge. After plucking life's blossoms as an aristocrat I must grasp the thorns."

Nothing could save him from his determination. He had lived as an aristocrat—it was incumbent on him, he said, not to shirk death as one.

At last la Tour left him and sought for the Admiral. He could not find the latter until about two o'clock, and then at the prison. The concierge said he was in the courtyard and la Tour found him engaged in a singular business.

The women's courtyard was separated by an iron railing some fifteen feet long from the men's. Here the imprisoned ladies communicated with their male friends as gaily as if each were not foredoomed. The Faubourg St. Germain was transferred to the Conciergerie. The toilets were the freshest and the manners most well-bred in Paris. The guillotine was the subject of facetious remarks up to the very hour of parting for the mockery of the trial below, and at evening vows of love were breathed between the bars. La Tour found a crowd on both sides enjoying the cramped promenade. Amid this crowd was a "sheep"—one of those vile spies who acted the part of pretending to be a fellow-prisoner of the rest in order that he might entrap them into unguarded expressions and denounce them.

The Sans-culottes commissioners were selecting their daily list of victims at random. In doing so they seized the "sheep." The Admiral was present and the "sheep" appealed to him, protesting his occupation. The Admiral only laughed at him.

"Correct," said he to the guard, chuckling, and the guard needed no more. They began to drag the "sheep" away.

The "sheep" was Jude.

"I am yours—you promised me my life," he desperately screamed back. The Admiral smiled contemptuously; his eyes were very bright and hard.

"I promised that Repentigny should die first; you afterwards; I grant you the privilege of going second." The Sans-culottes, their noisy laughs resounding through the corridor and echoed by the baying of the mastiffs, dragged the spy away.

La Tour could not move the Admiral to any leniency for Germain. The bandit followed each of his prayers by a sinister silence. At length la Tour was compelled by lack of time to give him up and speed to the revolutionary tribunal itself, in session underneath. He was just in time to make his appeal, for Lecour was already brought before the jury and the five judges.

The strenuous efforts of Hugues were nullified by the persistent refusal of the Canadian to take advantage of the device proposed to him, by his would-be preserver—of declaring himself a non-aristocrat. La Tour vehemently urged him at least to cry—"Vive la Republique!" At that Lecour seemed to conceive an idea, and stepping forward cried instead in a voice of decision—

"Long live the King!"

His sentence was signed immediately.

Sanson's death-carts rolled into the courtyard. The hour for the daily public show had arrived. The rest of the prisoners on trial were peremptorily shoved through the mill of condemnation and all were hustled up to the toilette of the executioner. Hands tied, hair cut, feet bared, half a dozen were pushed up into each cart, seated three on a side, and the carts set out. Seven in the line, the roughest, rudest vehicles in the town, they jerked over the uneven cobbles, rumbled across the Pont-Neuf, and crept along the Rue de la Monnaie and then along the Rue Honore, regardless, both they, their carters, their executioner's men, and their Dragoon escorts, of the agony they freighted. The streets themselves wore unfeeling faces. The merchants had closed their shutters and across the facades of many houses were large inscriptions such as, "THE REPUBLIC ONE AND INDIVISIBLE," "LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, or Death." And the sun poured down its untempered rays on the condemned. But more pitiless than carts or streets or sun were the coarse Jacobins who ran alongside.

With what fine wit they shouted—

"Long live the razor of the Republic!"

A newsvendor began to sing, and was joined in chorus—

"Doctor Guillotin, That great medecin Love of human kind Preoccupies his mind."

As to the company of the lost in the carts, they consisted of a strange variety. In the first, the principal persons were a majestic woman and her two daughters, sitting erect, with hands tied, costumed freshly and invested still with the old carefulness of manner; but the eyes of the youngest were staring with horror. There was a large dog in the same cart, condemned for carrying despatches. In the next a National Assembly-man, betrayed by Robespierre, tore his hair and raved on his fate. Opposite him two poor sewing-women, falsely accused by a neighbour, sat helplessly, their eyes shut, their lips incessantly repeating prayers; by their side, a boy of eight, with bright, fair features, sobbing, his little hands tied, as the executioner's man showed the crowd with a laugh. His crime was that his father had been a Count. Third came the cart containing Germain, to whom all eyes were directed. On the seat opposite him was Jude, frantically entreating the saints, the driver, the guards, and the crowd to take pity on his soul.

"Buy the bulletin of the revolutionary tribunal; judgements of to-day! The horrible aristocrat Repentigny brought to justice! Here he is! here is the one who defied the jury!"

"Bodyguard of Capet!"

"Here is the one who killed Bec and Caron!" shrilled Wife Gougeon.

"Long live the Galley-on-Land!"

These cries gradually roused Lecour, and for the first time, putting it all together and recognising faces, he realised the truth of the Admiral's boast that he had been pursued all these years by the crew about him—the organisation of the cave of Fontainebleau. The long-lit hatred of so many eyes stabbed his heart to the quick. Yet of the inward Passion of his journey there was no outward appearance. He sat quiet of visage, clinging to the one underlying thought that he had been able to free Cyrene. Alas! how long even yet could it be before she would be riding the same ride?

Suddenly Abbe Jude in front of him lost his frantic gestures and sobbed violently. Germain put aside his own concerns, and bending over whispered gently, "Courage, my brother, for a little."

"Admit even now that you are not an aristocrat," cried Hughes from beside the cart, "and I will move heaven and earth to reprieve you."

But Germain went steadily forward.

The Place de la Revolution, now completely transformed into the Place de la Concorde, that ornament of Paris, was then unpaved and unfinished. In the middle stood a plaster statue of Liberty and near it the gaunt machine of fear—a plank platform reached by a narrow stair having a single handrail, and, pointing out of it towards the sky a pair of tall beams between which, on touching a spring, the knife fell on the neck of the condemned.

From early morning Cyrene had been waiting, racked with fear, at the house of la Tour on one of the small streets not far from the Place. At the sound of the shouts which showed that an execution had begun, she flew there and by despairing force crushed her way through thousands of spectators, towards the guillotine, on whose platform figures could already be seen appearing and falling one by one. She moaned and gasped at each fresh obstacle to her frantic efforts. Her lips were white, her eyes staring.

The patriotesses, who sat knitting on the stand erected near the machine for their daily delectation, agreed that she was an excellent diversion.

All at once her difficulty in pushing forward ceased and the brutes around her made way.

"Give her a good place," she heard one cry, and many hands impelled her to the foot of the guillotine. Bloated faces, wicked jests, fists grasping pipes and bottles, a tumult of the coarse and passionate, swayed, about her, organised under one being, the Admiral, jeering in his low power. Never had his head, his face, shown more completely their resemblance to a skull.

As he stretched up his arm with a gesture of ferocious, gleeful malice, the wretches around the scaffold, as one man, broke into intoxicated laughter, joined hands and swayed in and out in the popular dance—

"Hurrah for the sound Of the cannon."

Meanwhile two of his henchmen held Cyrene before him.

"Look!" he cried to her. "See!" and pointed up to the guillotine. Her eyes involuntarily followed.

She saw the flash of the descending blade. Wild and speechless, she hung petrified on the arms of the two men holding her. But now she was oblivious of everything except that another head, another form, far above all else to her, was on the platform. His face was pallid, his bearing sweet, solemn, and brave.

"Death to the aristocrat!" shouted the excited mob. His lips moved with a brief appearance of words. Had she been closer she would have beard him say quietly: "It is just."

The executioner Sanson turned from the last victim and seized him. At the very instant he felt the grasp he caught sight of the face of his beloved, held there in the grasp of the two Jacobins. This was the crowning agony. The immensity of his retribution swept over him in an overwhelming flood.

"Oh God, does Justice require this too?" he cried.

Sanson's sinewy assistants thrust him against an upright plank. In the last remnants of her congested, distorted vision, Cyrene saw the bright knife fall like a lightning vengeance.

At night in the Cemetery of the Madeleine near by la Tour, searching anxiously with a lantern, found her lying across the common trench into which the bodies and heads of the executed were indiscriminately thrown and hastily covered. There, her arms stretched across as if to embrace as much of it as she could, her wonderful golden majesty of hair strewn upon them, her white complexion still dazzling in its purity, her blue eyes half closed, lay the fiancee of the false Repentigny. Her soul had flown to be blent with that of him who had suffered his punishment, in the bosom of God, the place of social justice, where all ambition and all forgiveness melt satisfied and surpassed in Love Divine.

* * * * *

A wave of the Revolution swept out to India. In Mahe, under the eyes of the new Golden Dog, Philibert killed the Marquis de Repentigny.

THE END.

UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.