principal article of furniture in the Hall of
Justice was a long clumsy deal table,
covered with green baize. At the head of this
table sat the president and his court, with
their hats on, backed by a heterogeneous
collection of patriots officially connected in
various ways with the proceedings that were
to take place. Below the front of the table,
a railed-off space, with a gallery beyond, was
appropriated to the general public—mostly
represented as to the gallery, on this occasion,
by women, all sitting together on forms,
knitting, shirt-mending, and baby-linen-making, as
coolly as if they were at home. Parallel with
the side of the table farthest from the great
door of entrance, was a low platform, railed
off, on which the prisoners, surrounded by
their guard, were now assembled, to await
their trial. The sun shone in brightly from a
high window, and a hum of ceaseless talking
pervaded the hall cheerfully, as Lomaque
entered it. He was a privileged man here,
as at the prison; and he made his way in by
a private door, so as to pass the prisoners'
platform, and to walk round it, before he got
to a place behind the president's chair.
Trudaine, standing with his sister on the
outermost limits of the group, nodded
significantly as Lomaque looked up at him for
an instant. He had contrived, on his way
to the tribunal, to get an opportunity of
reading the paper which the chief-agent had
slipped into his cravat. It contained these
lines:—" I have just discovered who the
citizen and citoyenne Dubois are. There is
no chance for you but to confess everything.
By that means you may inculpate a certain
citizen holding authority, and may make it
his interest, if he loves his own life, to save
yours and your sister's."

Arrived at the back of the president's
chair, Lomaque recognised his two trusty
subordinates, Magloire and Picard, waiting
among the assembled patriot-officials, to give
their evidence. Beyond them, leaning against
the wall, addressed by no one, and speaking
to no one, stood the superintendent Danville.
Doubt and suspense were written in every
line of his face; the fretfulness of an uneasy
mind expressed itself in his slightest gestures
—even in his manner of passing a handkerchief,
from time to time, over his face, on
which the perspiration was gathering thick
and fast already.

"Silence! " cried the usher of the court for
the time being—a hoarse-voiced man in top-
boots, with a huge sabre buckled to his side,
and a bludgeon in his hand. "Silence for the
citizen-president! " he reiterated, striking
his bludgeon on the table.

The president rose, and proclaimed that
the sitting for the day had begun; then sat
down again. The momentary silence which
followed was interrupted by a sudden confusion
among the prisoners on the platform.
Two of the guards sprang in among them.
There was the thump ot a heavy fall—a
scream of terror from some of the female
prisoners—then another dead silence, broken
by one of the guards, who walked across the
hall with a bloody knife in his hand, and laid
it on the table. " Citizen-president," he said,
"I have to report that one of the prisoners has
just stabbed himself." There was a murmuring
exclamation—" Is that all? " among the
women-spectators, as they resumed their work.
Suicide at the bar of justice was no uncommon
occurrence under the Reign of Terror.

"Name?" asked the president, quietly
taking up his pen, and opening a book.

"Martigné," answered the hump-backed
gaoler, coming forward to the table.

"Description?"

"Ex-royalist coach-maker to the tyrant
Capet."

"Accusation?"

"Conspiracy in prison."

The president nodded, and entered in the
book—"Martigné, coachmaker. Accused of
conspiring in prison. Anticipated course of
law by suicide. Action accepted as sufficient
confession of guilt. Goods confiscated. 1st
Thermidor, year two of the Republic."

"Silence! " cried the man with the bludgeon,
as the president dropped a little sand on the
entry, and signing to the gaoler that he might
remove the dead body, closed the book.

"Any special cases this morning?" resumed
the president, looking round at the group
behind him.

"There is one," said Lomaque, making his
way to the back of the official chair. '' Will
it be convenient to you, citizen, to take the
case of Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville
first? Two of my men are detained here as
witnesses; and their time is valuable to the
Republic."

The president marked a list of names
before him, and handed it to the crier or
usher, placing the figures one and two against
Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville.

While Lomaque was backing again to his
former place behind the chair, Danville
approached, and whispered to him—" There is
a rumour that secret information has reached
you about the citizen and citoyenne Dubois.
Is it true? Do you know who they are?"

"Yes," answered Lomaque; " but I have
superior orders to keep the information to
myself, just at present."

The eagerness with which Danville put
his question, and the disappointment he
showed on getting no satisfactory answer to
it, were of a nature to satisfy the observant
chief-agent that his superintendent was really
as ignorant as he appeared to be on the
subject of the man and woman Dubois. That
one mystery, at any rate, was still, for Danville,
a mystery unrevealed.

"Louis Trudaine! Rose Danville! " shouted
the crier, with another rap of his bludgeon.

The two came forward, at the appeal, to the
front railing of the platform. The first sight
of her judges, the first shock, on confronting