ul to him since happiness had fled with
it on the dark wings of dishonour; sorrow such as he felt was only for
Jeanne! She was very young, and would weep bitter tears. She would be
unhappy, because she truly loved him, and because this would be the
first cup of bitterness which life was holding out to her. But she
was very young, and sorrow would not be eternal. It was better so. He,
Armand St. Just, though he loved her with an intensity of passion that
had been magnified and strengthened by his own overwhelming shame,
had never really brought his beloved one single moment of unalloyed
happiness.

From the very first day when he sat beside her in the tiny boudoir
of the Square du Roule, and the heavy foot fall of Heron and his
bloodhounds broke in on their first kiss, down to this hour which he
believed struck his own death-knell, his love for her had brought more
tears to her dear eyes than smiles to her exquisite mouth.

Her he had loved so dearly, that for her sweet sake he had sacrificed
honour, friendship and truth; to free her, as he believed, from the
hands of impious brutes he had done a deed that cried Cain-like for
vengeance to the very throne of God. For her he had sinned, and because
of that sin, even before it was committed, their love had been blighted,
and happiness had never been theirs.

Now it was all over. He would pass out of her life, up the steps of the
scaffold, tasting as he mounted them the most entire happiness that he
had known since that awful day when he became a Judas.

The peremptory summons, once more repeated, roused him from his
meditations. He lit a candle, and without troubling to slip any of his
clothes on, he crossed the narrow ante-chamber, and opened the door that
gave on the landing.

"In the name of the people!"

He had expected to hear not only those words, but also the grounding of
arms and the brief command to halt. He had expected to see before him
the white facings of the uniform of the Garde de Paris, and to feel
himself roughly pushed back into his lodging preparatory to the search
being made of all his effects and the placing of irons on his wrists.

Instead of this, it was a quiet, dry voice that said without undue
harshness:

"In the name of the people!"

And instead of the uniforms, the bayonets and the scarlet caps with
tricolour cockades, he was confronted by a slight, sable-clad figure,
whose face, lit by the flickering light of the tallow candle, looked