be silent; and then turning round, tried again to forget their own misery in sleep.  For you see, the bloodthirsty canaille had not been sated with guillotining and hanging all the nobility they could find, but were now informing, right and left, even against each other; and when Clement and Jacques were in the prison, there were few of gentle blood in the place, and fewer still of gentle manners.  At the sound of the angry words and threats, Jacques thought it best to awaken his master from his feverish uncomfortable sleep, lest he should provoke more enmity; and, tenderly lifting him up, he tried to adjust his own body, so that it should serve as a rest and a pillow for the younger man.  The motion aroused Clement, and he began to talk in a strange, feverish way, of Virginie, too,—­whose name he would not have breathed in such a place had he been quite himself.  But Jacques had as much delicacy of feeling as any lady in the land, although, mind you, he knew neither how to read nor write,—­and bent his head low down, so that his master might tell him in a whisper what messages he was to take to Mademoiselle de Crequy, in case—­Poor Clement, he knew it must come to that!  No escape for him now, in Norman disguise or otherwise!  Either by gathering fever or guillotine, death was sure of his prey.  Well! when that happened, Jacques was to go and find Mademoiselle de Crequy, and tell her that her cousin loved her at the last as he had loved her at the first; but that she should never have heard another word of his attachment from his living lips; that he knew he was not good enough for her, his queen; and that no thought of earning her love by his devotion had prompted his return to France, only that, if possible, he might have the great privilege of serving her whom he loved.  And then he went off into rambling talk about petit-maitres, and such kind of expressions, said Jacques to Flechier, the intendant, little knowing what a clue that one word gave to much of the poor lad’s suffering.

“The summer morning came slowly on in that dark prison, and when Jacques could look round—­his master was now sleeping on his shoulder, still the uneasy, starting sleep of fever—­he saw that there were many women among the prisoners. (I have heard some of those who have escaped from the prisons say, that the look of despair and agony that came into the faces of the prisoners on first wakening, as the sense of their situation grew upon them, was what lasted the longest in the memory of the survivors.  This look, they said, passed away from the women’s faces sooner than it did from those of the men.)

“Poor old Jacques kept falling asleep, and plucking himself up again for fear lest, if he did not attend to his master, some harm might come to the swollen, helpless arm.  Yet his weariness grew upon him in spite of all his efforts, and at last he felt as if he must give way to the irresistible desire, if only for five minutes.  But just then there was a bustle at the door.  Jacques opened his eyes wide to look.