was a burden
and a trouble to you."

CHAPTER V.

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 jailer took
his prisoners back to St. 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 passed 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