"Ah! you should go to my shop, and try a
certain cask, filled with a certain vintage!"

"What shop? Which vintage?"

"I can't stop to tell you now; but we shall
most likely meet again to-day. I expect to
be at the prison this afternoon. Shall I ask
for you? Good! I won't forget! " With
those farewell words he went out; and never
so much as looked back at the prisoners before
he closed the door behind him.

Trudaine returned to his sister, fearful
lest his face should betray what had passed
during the extraordinary interview between
Lomaque and himself. But, whatever change
there might be in his expression, Rose did
not seem to notice it. She was still strangely
inattentive to all outward things. That spirit
of resignation, which is the courage of women
in all great emergencies, seemed now to be
the one animating spirit that fed the flame of
life within her. When her brother sat down
by her, she only took his hand gently, and
said—" Let us stop together like this, Louis,
till the time comes. I am not afraid of it;
for I have nothing but you to make me love
life, and you, too, are going to die. Do you
remember the time when I used to grieve
that I had never had a child to be some
comfort to me? I was thinking, a moment
ago, how terrible it would have been now, If
my wish had been granted. It is a blessing
for me, in this great misery, that I am childless!
Let us talk of old days, Louis, as long
as we can—not of my husband, or my
marriage—only of the old times, before I was a
burden and a trouble to you."

The day wore on. By ones and twos and
threes at a time, the condemned prisoners
came from the tribunal, and collected in the
waiting-room. At two o'clock all was ready
for the calling over of the death-list. It was
read and verified by an officer of the court;
and then the gaoler took his prisoners back
to Saint Lazare.

Evening came. The prisoners' meal had
been served; the duplicate of the death-list
had been read in public at the grate; the cell-
doors were all locked. From the day of their
arrest, Rose and her brother, partly through
the influence of a bribe, partly through
Lomaque's intercession, had been confined
together in one cell; and together they now
awaited the dread event of the morrow. To
Rose, that event was death—death, to the
thought of which, at least, she was now
resigned. To Trudaine, the fast-nearing future
was darkening hour by hour, with the
uncertainty which is worse than death; with the
faint, fearful, unpartaken suspense, which
keeps the mind ever on the rack, and wears
away the heart slowly. Through the long,
unsolaced agony of that dreadful night, but
one relief came to him. The tension of every
nerve, the crushing weight of the one fatal
oppression that clung to every thought,
relaxed a little, when Rose's bodily powers
began to sink under her mental exhaustion—
when her sad dying talk of the happy times
that were past ceased softly, and she laid her
head on his shoulder, and let the angel of
slumber take her yet for a little while, even
though she lay already under the shadow of
the angel of death.

The morning came, and the hot summer
sunrise. What life was left in the terror-
struck city awoke for the day faintly; and
still the suspense of the long night remained
unlightened. It was drawing near the hour
when the tumbrils were to come for the victims
doomed, on the day before. Trudaine's ear
could detect even the faintest sound in the
echoing prison-region outside his cell. Soon
listening near the door, he heard voices
disputing on the other side of it. Suddenly,
the bolts were drawn back, the key turned
in the lock, and he found himself standing
face to face with the hunchback and one
of the subordinate attendants on the
prisoners.

"Look! " muttered this last man, sulkily,
"there they are, safe in their cell, just as I
said; but I tell you again they are not down
in the list. What do you mean by bullying
me about not chalking their door, last night,
along with the rest? Catch me doing your
work for you again, when you're too drunk to
do it yourself!"

"Hold your tongue, and let me have
another look at the list! " returned the
hunchback, turning away from the cell-door,
and snatching a slip of paper from the other's
hand. " The devil take me if I can make
head or tail of it! " he exclaimed, scratching
his head, after a careful examination of the
list. " I could swear that I read over their
names at the grate, yesterday afternoon, with
my own lips; and yet, look as long as I may,
I certainly can't find them written down
here. Give us a pinch, friend. Am I
awake, or dreaming?—drunk, or sober, this
morning?"

"Sober, I hope," said a quiet voice at his
elbow. " I have just looked in to see how
you are, after yesterday."

"How I am, citizen Lomaque? Petrified
with astonishment. You yourself took charge
of that man and woman for me, in the waiting-
room, yesterday morning; and as for
myself, I could swear to having read their
names at the grate, yesterday afternoon. Yet,
this morning, here are no such things as these
said names to be found in the list! What do
you think of that?"

" And what do you think," interrupted the
aggrieved subordinate, "of his having the
impudence to bully me for being careless in
chalking the doors, when he was too drunk
to do it himself?—too drunk to know his
right hand from his left! If I wasn't the
best-natured man in the world, I should
report him to the head-gaoler."

"Quite right of you to excuse him, and
quite wrong of him to bully you," said