the scaffold.  It looked like a moment’s struggle between executioners and hand-tied victim, an unequal contest.  Still the drums—­then the sound of the heavy falling knife.  Then silence, and Samson, chief priest of the guillotine, holding the head high, at arm’s length, that all may see it and know that tyranny is at an end, that France is free.  Patriotism, armed and otherwise, went mad with delight.  This was a gala day!  Sing, dance, drink in it!  Such a day was never known in Paris before!

[Illustration:  Paris flung its red cap in the air and France laughed.]

It was no wonder that Jeanne was forgotten, that Dr. Legrand was not called upon to answer awkward questions.  It was not remarkable that the alleys and byways of Paris were deserted for the wider streets and places where patriots could rejoice together, and that many who were in hiding should be free for a day or two from the alarms which almost hourly beset them.

Richard Barrington had remained untroubled for many hours.  As he fought in the empty house, struggling against a crowd which seemed to press in upon him from every side, and out of which looked familiar faces, his brain had played him a trick he thought he was fleeing from his enemies, jumping into darkness for safety.  There had followed a period of total unconsciousness, set in the midst of a continuous dream as it were, for he seemed to realize at once without any break that he had fallen upon a bed of straw and could safely lie there to rest his tired limbs.  There was no recollection of Legrand’s asylum, or of the night escape over the roofs, but presently there came a conviction that he ought to be with Jeanne.  It seemed to him that he tried to get out of the straw but was unable to do so.  It had so twined about his body and limbs that he was bound by it as if with ropes.  He must rest a little longer until he had more strength to break his bonds.  Then again, faces looked at him, faces he ought to know, yet could not remember.  There were low voices about him.  He was thirsty, and in his struggles to free himself from the straw, chance guided his hand to a cup.  Cool liquid was in it, water or wine, he could not tell which, but he drank eagerly and lay still again for a long time.  Presently his strength was certainly returning, for without any great effort he drew his hands free from the binding straw and raised himself.  A faint light was about him, showing stone walls, a narrow room, in a corner of which he was lying.  On the floor beside him was a cup, a wine bottle, and a piece of bread.  He picked up the bread and almost mechanically bit a piece out of it.  He found that he was hungry.  There was wine in the bottle and he drank.  The straw no longer bound him, and he rose slowly to his feet and stared about him.  Then, like waters suddenly breaking down a dam and flowing again into their old channel, memory reasserted itself and his brain grew clear.  He recollected the empty house, the sudden movement on the stars, the fight, Jeanne standing behind him in the corner.  What had happened?  Where was she?  Where was Seth?  He knew where he was.  The chair and table, the bowl and water can, the straw bed, the stone walls and the high grating—­he was again in that buried cell of the old monastery.