ace by Victor's bedside in readiness
to hold him down should he try to get up in his ravings, while
the good woman ladled out a basin of the broth and placed it with
a piece of bread and some wine on the table. Harry forced himself
to drink it, and when he rose from the table he already felt the
benefit of the meal.

"Thank you very much," he said. "I feel stronger now; but how I
am to tell the story I do not know. But I must make quite certain
before I go to these poor girls that their parents were killed.
Three or four were spared at the Abbaye. Possibly it may have been
the same thing at the Bicetre."

So Harry went back and waited outside the prison until the bloody
work was over; but found on questioning those who came out when
all was done that the thirst for blood had increased with killing,
and that all the prisoners found in the Bicetre had been put to
death.

"Ma foi!" the man whom he was speaking to said; "but these accursed
aristocrats have courage. Men and women were alike; there was not
one of them but faced the judges bravely and went to their death
as calmly as if to dinner. There was a marquis and his wife--the
Marquis de St. Caux they called him. They brought them out together.
They were asked whether they had anything to say why they should
not be punished for their crimes against France. The marquis laughed
aloud.

"'Crimes!' he said. 'Do you think a Marquis de St. Caux is going
to plead for his life to a band of murderers and assassins? Come,
my love.'

"He just gave her one kiss, and then took her hand as if they were
going to walk a minuet together, and then led her down between the
lines of guards with his head erect and a smile of scorn on his
face. She did not smile, but her step never faltered. I watched
her closely. She was very pale, and she did not look proud, but
she walked as calmly and steadily as her husband till they reached
the door where the pikemen were awaiting them, and then it was
over in a minute, and they died without a cry or a groan. They are
wretches, the aristocrats. They have fattened on the life-blood of
the people; but they know how to die, these people."

Without a word Harry turned away. He had told himself there was no
hope; but he knew by the bitter pang he felt now that he had hoped
to the last. Then he walked slowly away to tell the news.

There were comparatively few people about the streets, and these
all of the lower order. Every shop was closed. Men