onducted her to her
chamber, persuaded her to undress, and did not leave her until the girl
had fallen asleep. But her slumber was of short duration. It was
scarcely midnight when Antoinette awoke with a start from a frightful
dream. Philip had appeared to her, his hands bound behind his back, his
neck bare, his hair cut short. He was clad in the lugubrious garb of the
condemned, and he called her name in a voice wild with entreaty.

"Oh! I will go--I will go to save him or to die with him!"

This cry was upon her lips when she woke. She sprang up, hastily dressed
herself, took the little money that chanced to be in her possession,
and some or her jewels, and when the first gleam of daylight illumined
the sky, animated by a saint-like courage, she furtively left the roof
that had sheltered her for three long years. When Mrs. Reed entered the
young girl's room a few hours later, she found only a letter apprising
her of Antoinette's fixed determination to go to the rescue of her
lover, and thanking her most gratefully for her care and love. Mr. Reed
hastened to London, hoping to overtake the fugitive. Vain attempt! His
search was fruitless. Antoinette had disappeared.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MOVING CURTAIN.

Several months had passed since Dolores and Coursegol had taken up their
abode in the house of Citizen Vauquelas. Coursegol, engrossed in the
business matters which he had undertaken in concert with Vauquelas, went
out every day, frequenting the Clubs, the Convention and the Palais
Egalite. Dolores, on the contrary, seldom left the refuge that chance
had provided for her. If she sometimes ventured into the heart of the
city, it was only to visit Cornelia Bridoul or to accompany her to a
stealthily said mass, solemnized in an obscure chamber by some
courageous priest who dared for conscience's sake to bid defiance to the
Committee of Public Safety, and who would have paid the penalty of
disobedience with his blood, had he been discovered.

The life of Dolores was extremely lonely and sad. Deprived of companions
of her own age, and oppressed with anxiety concerning the fate of those
who were so dear to her, she grew pale and wan like a plant deprived of
sunlight; the old joyous, sonorous ring was gone from her voice and from
her laugh. She had suffered so much during the past three years that she
no longer cherished any hope of happiness in the future; and, instead
of the bright dreams that are wont to gladden t