en-down arm
chair which Philip obtained for her, not without considerable
difficulty, and declared that she would spend the night there. Philip
placed himself on a stool at her feet and thus they waited the break of
day.

Their companions were stretched upon their couches fast asleep, and the
night, which promised to be heavy with cruel wakefulness and fatigue,
passed like some delightful dream.

They could not close their eyes to the fate that was in store for them.
Philip had plotted to save the queen; he had returned from his refuge in
foreign lands solely for this purpose. By sheltering him, Dolores had
become his accomplice. Such crimes would meet with, no indulgence. In
the morning they would be interrogated by an official, whose mind had
been poisoned against them in advance, and who would show no mercy to
their youth. Accused of desiring the overthrow of the Republic and the
return of the Bourbons, they would be sent to prison, taken from their
cells to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and condemned to the guillotine.
Such was the summary mode of procedure during the Reign of Terror. To
hope that any exception would be made in their case was folly. All that
was left for them, therefore, was to prepare to die. If the prospect of
such a fate brought the tears to their eyes at first, it was not because
either of them was wanting in courage. No, it was only for the fate that
was to befall the other that each wept. But when they had talked
together, and learned that they were mutually resigned, their sorrow was
appeased; and as if their sentence had already been pronounced, they
thought only of making their last hours on earth pass as calmly and
sweetly as possible.

"Why should I fear to die?" said Dolores, when Philip tried to encourage
her by hopes in which he himself had not the slightest confidence.
"Death has terrors only for those who leave some loved one behind them;
but when I am gone, who will be left to mourn for me? Antoinette? Have I
not for a long time been the same as dead to her? I can leave the world
without creating a void in any heart, without causing any one a pang.
Hence I can, without regret, go to seek the eternal rest for which I
have sighed so long."

"Have you truly longed for death?" asked Philip.

"I have seen so many loved ones fall around me," replied Dolores, "my
eyes have witnessed so many sorrows, I have suffered so much, and my
life since my happy childhood has been so unspeakably l