Triudaine—after that, back again at her son.
Something in her presence silenced everyone.
There fell a sudden stillness over all the
assembly—a stillness so deep, that the eager,
frightened whispering, and sharp rustling of
dresses among the women in the library
became audible from the other side of the
closed door.

"Charles!" she said, slowly advancing;
"why do you look—?" She stopped, and
fixed her eyes again on her son more earnestly
than before; then turned them suddenly on
Trudaine. "You are looking at my son, sir,"
she said, "and I see contempt in your face.
By what right do you insult a man whose
grateful sense of his mother's obligations to
you, made him risk his life for the saving of
yonr's and your sister's? By what right
have you kept the escape of my son's wife from
death by the guillotine—an escape which, for
all I know to the contrary, his generous
exertions were instrumental in effecting—a secret
from my son? By what right, I demand to
know, has your treacherous secresy placed us
in such a position as we now stand in before
the master of this house?"

An expression of sorrow and pity passed
over Trudaine's face while she spoke. He
retired a few steps, and gave her no answer.
The general looked at him with eager
curiosity; and, dropping his hold of Danville's
arm, seemed about to speak; but Lomaque
stepped forward at the same time, and held
up his hand to claim attention.

"I think I shall express the wishes of
citizen Trudaine," he said, addressing Madame
Danville, "if I recommend this lady not to
press for too public an answer to her
questions."

"Pray who are you, sir, who take it on
yourself to advise me?" she retorted haughtily.
"I have nothing to say to you, except
that I repeat those questions, and that I
insist on their being answered."

"Who is this man?" asked the general,
addressing Trudaine, and pointing to Lomaque.

"A man unworthy of credit," cried Danville,
speaking audibly for the first time, and
darting a look of deadly hatred at Lomaque.
"An agent of police under Robespierre."

"And in that capacity capable of answering
questions which refer to the transactions of
Robespierre's tribunals," remarked the ex-
chief-agent with his old official self-possession.

"True!" exclaimed the general; "the man
is right—let him be heard.''

"There is no help for it," said Lomaque,
looking at Trudaine; "leave it to me—it is
fittest that I should speak. I was present,"
he continued, in a louder voice, "at the trial
of citizen Trudaine and his sister. They
were brought to the bar through the
denunciation of citizen Danville. Till the confession
of the male prisoner exposed the fact, I can
answer for Danville's not being aware of the
real nature of the offences charged against
Trudaine and his sister. When it became
known that they had been secretly helping
this lady to escape from France, and when
Danville's own head was consequently in
danger, I myself heard him save it by a false
assertion that he had been aware of
Trudaine's conspiracy from the first—"

"Do you mean to say," interrupted the
general, "that he proclaimed himself in open
court, as having knowingly denounced the
man who was on trial for saving his mother?"

"I do," answered Lomaque. (A murmur
of horror and indignation rose from all the
strangers present, at that reply). "The
reports of the Tribunal are existing to prove
the truth of what I say," he went on. "As
to the escape of citizen Trudaine and the
wife of Danville from the guillotine, it was
the work of political circumstances, which
there are persons living to speak to, if necessary;
and of a little stratagem of mine, which
need not be referred to now. And, last, with
reference to the concealment which followed
the escape, I beg to inform you that it was
abandoned the moment we knew of what
was going on here; and that it was only
persevered in up to this time, as a natural
measure of precaution on the part of citizen
Trudaine. From a similar motive we
now abstain from exposing his sister to the
shock and the peril of being present here.
What man with an atom of feeling, would
risk letting her even look again on such a
husband as that?"

He glanced round him, and pointed to
Danville, as he put the question. Before a
word could be spoken by any one else in
the room, a low wailing cry of, "My mistress!
my dear, dear mistress!" directed
all eyes first on the old man, Dubois, then
on Madame Danville.

She had been leaning against the wall,
before Lomaque began to speak; but she
stood perfectly upright now. She neither
spoke nor moved. Not one of the light
gaudy ribands flaunting on her disordered
head-dress so much as trembled. The old
servant Dubois was crouched on his knees
at her side, kissing her cold right hand,
chafing it in his, reiterating his faint mournful
cry, "Oh my mistress! my dear, dear
mistress!" but she did not appear to know
that he was near her. It was only when her
son advanced a step or two towards her that
she seemed to awaken suddenly from that
death-trance of mental pain. Then she slowly
raised the hand that was free, and waved him
back from her. He stopped in obedience to
the gesture, and endeavoured to speak. She
waved her hand again, and the deathly
stillness of her face began to grow troubled. Her
lips moved a little—she spoke.

"Oblige me, sir, for the last time, by keeping
silence. You and I have henceforth
nothing to say to each other. I am the daughter
of a race of nobles, and the widow of a man
of honour. You are a traitor and a false
witness; a thing from which all true men