“You are right.  Delay will be wise,” was the answer.

“Urge it, then,” said Latour, with gleaming, sinister eyes.  “Urge it.  You are the keepers of prisoners and should know best when to spare and when to kill.  It is not my business, and I have a name for gentleness in some matters, a reputation which it suits me to preserve, but I am bloodthirsty enough to give you good advice.”

Latour knew how swift revolutionary justice was sometimes.  It might be only a matter of hours between mademoiselle and the guillotine.  He had counseled delay, confident that these men would counsel it in their turn, and take to themselves the credit for so excellent an idea.

He had other business as he passed along the corridor of the prison, a jest with the red-capped turnkey concerning the pretty birds he tended so lovingly.

“Some of them sing even, citizen,” answered the man, with a great, coarse laugh.  “Shall I show you some of my pets?  You may not have another opportunity.”

“I do not understand birds.”

“Will you not look at the new one caught only to-day?”

“Ah, the aristocrat!  I had forgotten her.  Where is she caged?”

“Yonder, a small cage, and with three others not of her breed.  She does not sing, citizen, she scolds.  I tell you she has some strange oaths and curses at her tongue tip, and mingles them curiously with prayers for deliverance.”

Latour laughed.  He must show no anger at this man’s humor, and he had nothing to suggest which might secure mademoiselle greater comfort.

He glanced along the corridor in the direction the man had pointed.  A few yards of passage and a locked door were all that separated him from the woman he would help.  The temptation to look upon her for a moment was great, the thought that by a glance he might convey a message of assurance to her seemed to offer an excuse, but he resisted the temptation.

“I shall see enough of your birds when you send them on their last flight,” he said, carelessly.  “I hoped to see Mathon—­where is he?”

“Drinking in the nearest wine shop, citizen, I’ll wager, since he is off duty.”

“It is a bad habit for turnkeys to drink,” said Latour, severely, and the red-capped bully felt a sudden qualm of nervousness in his frame as he remembered how powerful this man was.

“Mathon is a good fellow.  I spoke in jest, not to do him harm.  When he has the keys in his keeping he does not drink, citizen.”

“I am glad to hear that,” answered Latour, as he passed on.

He found the turnkey Mathon in a neighboring wine shop, and called him out.  The order was peremptory, and the man came quickly.  Mathon had a history.  He had been lackey to a nobleman, and while shouting with patriots in the beginning of the trouble, had helped his old master and his master’s friends.  Since then he had mended his ways and become a true patriot, with no desire to help a living soul but himself, with no sentiment and no fear in him except for one man—­Raymond Latour.  Latour knew the truth about him, was the only man who did, and held the proof, therefore Mathon was bound to serve him.  He came quickly out of the wine shop and followed Latour into a side street.