“I could love that man,” Latour mused as he went towards the Rue Valette afterwards.  “Yet I must spy upon him and deceive him if I can.  Mademoiselle is in Paris and he knows where she is hidden.  He is Bruslart’s friend, and Bruslart I hate.”

He climbed the stairs to his room to find Sabatier waiting for him on the landing.

“I have heard,” said Latour, unlocking his door and entering the room with his visitor, “I have heard the whole story.  The fools have been outwitted.  I have just left this man Barrington.”

“Citizen, I do not think you have heard the whole story.”

Latour turned quickly.  Something in the man’s tone startled him.

“Mademoiselle was taken to the Abbaye prison this afternoon,” said Sabatier.

A cry, a little cry almost like the whine of a small animal suddenly hurt, escaped from Latour’s lips.  His strength seemed to go out of him, and he sank into a chair by the table, his face pale, his hands trembling.

“Tell me,” he said, his voice a whisper.

“I cannot say how suspicion first arose, but some one at the barrier must have started it.  Whether it was a guess, or whether some one recalled her face some time after she had been allowed to pass, I do not know, nor does it matter much.  It got wind that Mademoiselle St. Clair had entered Paris, and where in Paris would she be most likely to go?—­to Citizen Bruslart’s.  A crowd was quickly on its way there.  Bruslart was away from home, but they would go in, and there they found her.  Not an hour ago they were shouting round her as they took her to the Abbaye.”

“There is wine in that cupboard, Sabatier—­thanks.  This news has taken the nerve out of me.  Bruslart must have known she was in his house.  Barrington would leave her there.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said Sabatier.  “I do not know how much this Barrington suspects, but I do not think he is a man to make so obvious a mistake.  I give him credit for more cunning, and with reason, I think.”

“And Bruslart must have known the danger,” said Latour.

“He may not, if he supposed mademoiselle had managed to get into Paris unseen.  I cannot understand Citizen Bruslart.”

“Dieu!  Did he betray her himself, Sabatier?”

“I do not know.  If I could see any object in his doing so I might suspect him.”

“The Abbaye,” Latour muttered, getting up and pacing the room.  “The Abbaye.  We must get her out, Sabatier.  She would never be acquitted.  Had she remained in Paris, the good she has done to the poor might have been remembered in her favor, but an emigre, her great name and all that it stands for—.  No, she is as surely doomed as any prisoner who has entered the Abbaye.  I have business at the prison to-night, Sabatier.  I may learn something of her.”

“Wait, citizen.  To-morrow will do.  You will not be careful enough to-night.”

Latour paused by the table, a little astonished perhaps at the concern in his companion’s voice.  Sabatier was to be trusted as a man who served well for payment, but his hands had been red often, and it was strange to hear anything like sentiment from his lips.