had rescued her.  Might it not be that he loved the aristocrat?  The mob made her a heroine and plied her with questions which she answered.  Scores remembered how she had been arrested, remembered her journey through the streets.  She was believed to be an aristocrat then, Jeanne St. Clair; now she was known for Pauline Vaison, as good a patriot as there was in Paris, and as handsome a woman, too.  She was a queen to-day.  Certainly there must be more inquiry, and at once.

The jailer Mathon was found in a wine shop, being off duty, and he was somewhat muddled with wine fumes though it was still early in the afternoon.  At first he could not remember anything, but fear presently cleared his wits.  Yes, a woman had escaped from the Abbaye, but he had been held blameless.  His papers were in order.  The authorities had been satisfied.  Had he recognized the officers who had taken the prisoner away?  That was the point.  Was one of them Deputy Latour?  No; and yet, now it was suggested to him, there had been something strangely familiar about one of the men.  It might have been Deputy Latour.  This was good evidence, and Mathon, the jailer, was suffered to go back to his wine.

But there was further inquiry still, more subtle questioning.  Lucien Bruslart was condemned to die; to-morrow, a week hence, no one knew yet when it would be, but certain it was that one day soon his name would be in the list; then the last ride and the end.  He was in despair one moment, mad for revenge the next.  Latour had come at his bidding to defend him, not for his sake but for his own, and he had failed.  He could ruin Latour probably, why should he not do so?  For one instant the good that is in every man, deep buried though it be, struggled to the surface and he shrank back from the thought, yet again revenge filled his soul, and there came the lust to drag others down with him, Latour, Jeanne, Pauline, and this cursed American.  He hated them all.  Why should they live if he was to die?

Why should he die?  Perhaps there would be no need.  It was a subtle suggestion in his ears, no fancy whispering to him, but a real voice.  A man in authority had entered his prison to talk to him.  True, Citizen Bruslart had been condemned, and justly, for he had not acted as a true patriot should, but mercy was always possible.  His prison doors might yet open again if he would tell the whole truth.  There were many questions asked; many answers given; true answers some of them, but all fashioned to save Lucien Bruslart from the guillotine, no matter who else they might send to it.  Yes, that was all he knew; was it enough to save him?  Patience.  He must wait a little.  It seemed enough.  So there was hope in the mean little soul of Lucien Bruslart, even though the prison doors were still closed upon him.