isappointed that the fatal list did
not contain my name; but as days, and then weeks, and then months
passed, the love of life rose high within me, and I grew to tremble for
that which I had once hoped for. Day by day I scrutinised the new
arrivals in the vague expectation of seeing among them those I loved
best. But they never came.

I made few, if any, acquaintances, for I resolved to keep my mouth shut.
Spies, I knew, infested the prisons as they did the streets, and many a
chance word uttered in the confidence of the dungeon was reported and
used as evidence against the victim. Now and again we were thrown into
excitement by the arrival in our midst of some notable prisoner, before
whose name, a few short weeks since, all Paris, nay, all France had
trembled, but who now was marked down and doomed by his rivals in power.
And sometimes rumours of convulsions without penetrated the walls of
our cells, and made us hope that, could we but endure a while, the end
of "the terror" was not far distant.

I remember one night when a new prisoner whispered to me that the great
Robespierre, at whose nod any head in Paris might drop into the dreadful
basket, had been blown upon within the walls of the Convention itself.

"Death is marked on his face," said he; "and when he falls there is hope
for us, for the people are sick of blood."

Alas! this same poor whisperer heard his name called out that very
night, and fell grovelling at my side, as if I could help him.

Still my name was held back. Either they had overlooked it in the
crowd, or had marked it through as dead already, or considered it less
important than others who had more pressing claims on the executioner's
knife.

Hope rose within me. I became so used to being passed that I ceased to
expect anything else, and only counted the days till the blood-red cloud
should have drifted past and left me free.

When, therefore, on the very night that news had come in that
Robespierre had indeed fallen, and was even then before his judges, I
heard the name "Regnier" read off the fatal list, I broke into a cold
sweat of amazement and terror, and fancied myself in a dream.

My name was the last on the list. With a dreadful fascination I watched
the turnkey chalk it on the door and the governor fold up his paper and
stick it in his belt. Then as they turned to the door despair seized
me. But before they could leave, a sudden clamour at the far end of the
room detaine