The week was as any other week to Jacques Sabatier.  Uplifted somewhat by Latour’s confidence in him, his swaggering gait was perhaps a little more pronounced, but he was untouched by apprehension, not so much because he was a fearless man—­like all swaggerers adverse circumstances would probably find him at heart a coward—­but because he had implicit faith in Raymond Latour.  The man he served was not only powerful and courageous; he was lucky, which counted for much.  What he had set his heart upon that he obtained.  It was a creed in which Sabatier had absolute faith, and the passing week was merely an interval which must elapse before success.

Mathon the jailer had not this sublime faith, and his fearfulness was perhaps natural.  As a jailer he was in close touch with facts and knew by experience how unstable in these days was any man’s power.  A week had often served to change a master whose anger was dangerous into a prisoner whose name might at any moment be upon the list of those destined forthwith to feed the guillotine.  He had not been brought so constantly in touch with Latour that he could appreciate him as a lucky man, and he contemplated his part in the enterprise with misgiving.

The plot was to be carried out on the second night upon which Mathon was on duty.  This was the first precaution.  Were he a party to mademoiselle’s escape it would be argued that he would have seized the first opportunity; that he had not done so would go some way to prove his innocence.  On this evening, too, Mathon was particularly loud in his hatred of all prisoners, of one emigre prisoner in particular, and his manners were brutal.  There would be many witnesses able to prove this.  In one small room at the end of a corridor he was particularly brutal.  He made the mere unlocking of the door a nerve-racking sound, and stamped in swearing under his breath.  Three women drew back into a corner, trembling.  They were women of a coarse bourgeois type, their chief crime misfortune.  They knew only imperfectly of what they were accused, why they were there, but they had few friends to spare a thought for them and expected each day to be their last.  Sometimes they were afraid and tearful, at other times careless, loose, and blasphemous, despair making them unnatural, and in this mood it pleased them to curse their fellow prisoner, also a woman, and an aristocrat.

Mathon laughed as they shrank from him.

“Disappointed again,” he said.  “You are not called to-night.  You will have another pleasant dream about it.  Perhaps to-morrow your turn will come.  It’s time.  This fine apartment is wanted for better people.”

Then he turned and walked towards the fourth prisoner.  If she were afraid she succeeded in hiding the fact.  She was standing by the window and she did not move.

“As for you, your time is short,” said the jailer, and then coming quite close to her he dropped his voice.  “Listen, and don’t show astonishment.  You will be released probably.  When the time comes, ask no questions, don’t speak, do as you are told.”  Then he swore loudly again and, jingling his keys, went out and locked the door.