was one. His sallow face whitened as he
looked towards the prisoners' platform.
"They are lost," he murmured to himself,
moving out of the group in which he had
hitherto stood. " Lost! The lie which has
saved that villain's head leaves them without
the shadow of a hope. No need to stop for
the sentence—Danville's infamous presence
of mind has given them up to the guillotine!"
Pronouncing these words, he went out
hurriedly by a door near the platform, which led
to the prisoners' waiting-room.

Rose's head sank again on her brother's
shoulder. She shuddered, and leaned back
faintly on the arm which he extended to
support her. One of the female prisoners
tried to help Trudaine in speaking consolingly
to her; but the consummation of her
husband's perfidy seemed to have paralysed her
at heart. She murmured once in her brother's
ear, " Louis! I am resigned to die—nothing
but death is left for me after the degradation
of having loved that man." She said those
words and closed her eyes wearily, and spoke
no more.

"One other question, and you may retire,"
resumed the president, addressing Danville.
"Were you cognisant of your wile's connection
with her brother's conspiracy?"

Danville reflected for a moment,
remembered that there were witnesses in court who
could speak to his language and behaviour on
the evening of his wife's arrest, and resolved
this time to tell the truth.

I was not aware of it," he answered.
"Testimony in my favour can be called which
will prove that when my wife's complicity
was discovered I was absent from Paris."

Heartlessly self-possessed as he was, the
public reception of his last reply had shaken
his nerve. He now spoke in low tones,
turning his back on the spectators, and fixing
his eyes again on the green baize of the table
at which he stood.

"Prisoners! have you any objection to
make, any evidence to call, invalidating the
statement by which citizen Danville has
cleared himself of suspicion? " inquired the
president.

"He has cleared himself by the most
execrable of all falsehoods," answered Trudaine.
"If his mother could be traced and brought
here, her testimony would prove it."

"Can you produce any other evidence in
support of your allegation?" asked the president.

"I cannot."

"Citizen-superintendent Danville, you are
at liberty to retire. Your statement will be
laid before the authority to whom you are
officially responsible. Either you merit a
civic crown for more than Roman virtue,
or—" Having got thus far, the president
stopped abruptly, as if unwilling to commit
himself too soon to an opinion, and merely
repeated,—" You may retire."

Danville lett the court immediately, going
out again by the public door. He was
followed by murmurs from the women's benches,
which soon ceased, however, when the president
was observed to close his note-book, and
turn round towards his colleagues. " The
sentence!" was the general whisper now.
"Hush, hush—the sentence!"

After a consultation of a few minutes with
the persons behind him, the president rose,
and spoke the momentous words:—" Louis
Trudaine and Rose Danville, the revolutionary
tribunal, having heard the charge against
you, and having weighed the value of what
you have said in answer to it, decides that
you are both guilty, and condemns you to the
penalty of death."

Having delivered the sentence in those
terms, he sat down again, and placed a mark
against the two first-condemned names on the
list of prisoners. Immediately afterwards,
the next case was called on, and the curiosity
of the audience was stimulated by a new
trial.

CHAPTER V.

THE waiting-room of the revolutionary
tribunal was a grim, bare place, with a dirty
stone floor, and benches running round the
walls. The windows were high and barred;
and at the outer door, leading into the street,
two sentinels kept watch. On entering this
comfortless retreat from the court, Lomaque
found it perfectly empty. Solitude was just
then welcome to him. He remained in the
waiting-room, walking slowly from end to
end over the filthy pavement, talking eagerly
and incessantly to himself.

After awhile, the door communicating with
the tribunal opened, and the hump-backed
gaoler made his appearance, leading in
Trudaine and Rose.

"You will have to wait here," said the
little man, " till the rest of them have been
tried and sentenced; and then you will all go
back to prison in a lump. Ha, citizen!" he
continued, observing Lomaque at the other
end of the hall, and bustling up to him.
"Here still, eh? If you were going to stop
much longer, I should ask a favour of you."

"I am in no hurry," said Lomaque, with a
glance at the two prisoners.

"Good!" cried the hunchback, drawing
his hand across his mouth; " I am parched
with thirst, and dying to moisten my throat
at the wine-shop over the way. Just mind
that man and woman while I'm gone, will
you? It's the merest form—there's a guard
outside, the windows are barred, the tribunal
is within hail. Do you mind obliging me?"

"On the contrary, I am glad of the opportunity."

"That's a good fellow—and, remember, if I
am asked for, you must say I was obliged to
quit the court for a few minutes, and left you
in charge."

With these words, the hump-backed gaoler
ran off to the wine-shop.