, and with
them ominously returned the police agent Magloire with a small sealed
packet. It contained an arrest-order and a tiny three-cornered note,
looking more like a love-letter, or a lady's invitation to a party,
than anything else. Lomaque opened the note eagerly and read these lines
neatly written, and signed with Robespierre's initials--M. R.--formed
elegantly in cipher:

"Arrest Trudaine and his sister to-night. On second thoughts, I am not
sure, if Danville comes back in time to be present, that it may not
be all the better. He is unprepared for his wife's arrest. Watch him
closely when it takes place, and report privately to me. I am afraid he
is a vicious man; and of all things I abhor Vice."

"Any more work for me to-night?" asked Magloire, with a yawn.

"Only an arrest," replied Lomaque. "Collect our men; and when you're
ready get a coach at the door."

"We were just going to supper," grumbled Magloire to himself, as he went
out. "The devil seize the Aristocrats! They're all in such a hurry to
get to the guillotine that they won't even give a man time to eat his
victuals in peace!"

"There's no choice now," muttered Lomaque, angrily thrusting the
arrest-order and the three-cornered note into his pocket. "His father
was the saving of me; he himself welcomed me like an equal; his sister
treated me like a gentleman, as the phrase went in those days; and
now--"

He stopped and wiped his forehead--then unlocked his desk, produced a
bottle of brandy, and poured himself out a glass of the liquor, which he
drank by sips, slowly.

"I wonder whether other men get softer-hearted as they grow older!" he
said. "I seem to do so, at any rate. Courage! courage! what must be,
must. If I risked my head to do it, I couldn't stop this arrest. Not a
man in the office but would be ready to execute it, if I wasn't."

Here the rumble of carriage-wheels sounded outside.

"There's the coach!" exclaimed Lomaque, locking up the brandy-bottle,
and taking his hat. "After all, as this arrest is to be made, it's as
well for them that I should make it."

Consoling himself as he best could with this reflection, Chief Police
Agent Lomaque blew out the candles, and quitted the room.

CHAPTER II.

Ignorant of the change in her husband's plans, which was to bring him
back to Paris a day before the time that had been fixed for his return,
Sister Rose had left her solitary home to spend the evening with her
brother. They ha