I escaped my merited punishment--nay, I even rose to the honor of
holding an office under the Government. Time passed; and again my mother
attempted an escape from France. Again, inevitable fate brought my civic
virtue to the test. How did I meet this second supremest trial? By an
atonement for past weakness, terrible as the trial itself. Citizens, you
will shudder; but you will applaud while you tremble. Citizens, look!
and while you look, remember well the evidence given at the opening of
this case. Yonder stands the enemy of his country, who intrigued to help
my mother to escape; here stands the patriot son, whose voice was the
first, the only voice, to denounce him for the crime!" As he spoke, he
pointed to Trudaine, then struck himself on the breast, then folded his
arms, and looked sternly at the benches occupied by the spectators.

"Do you assert," exclaimed the president, "that at the time when you
denounced Trudaine, you knew him to be intriguing to aid your mother's
escape?"

"I assert it," answered Danville.

The pen which the president held dropped from his hand at that reply;
his colleagues started, and looked at each other in blank silence.

A murmur of "Monster! monster!" began with the prisoners on the
platform, and spread instantly to the audience, who echoed and echoed it
again; the fiercest woman-republican on the benches joined cause at
last with the haughtiest woman-aristocrat on the platform. Even in that
sphere of direst discords, in that age of sharpest enmities, the
one touch of Nature preserved its old eternal virtue, and roused the
mother-instinct which makes the whole world kin.

Of the few persons in the court who at once foresaw the effect of
Danville's answer on the proceedings of the tribunal, Lomaque was one.
His sallow face whitened as he looked toward 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 speakin