and as her eyes could make out nothing whatever in the
darkness she concluded that the woman she heard must be a prisoner in an
adjoining cell.

In a short time a stealthy step approached. It stopped, a wooden door
swung back, and a band of greyish light showed a low room of rough beams
without a window. At the door Wife Gougeon peered in, and behind her was
the cheerless perspective of the shop, additionally cheerless in the
grey of early morning.

"Well, wench, how do you like being a _Sans-culotte_? You slept too soft
in the Old _Regime_."

Cyrene had not noticed how she had been sleeping; she now saw that her
bed was a pile of straw on a box.

"Get up, you sow, and sweep my floor!" exclaimed the ragman's wife. "Get
up!"

Cyrene's first instinct was to lie still in tacit disdain. The
recollection of Germain, however, crossed her mind. Rather submit to
anything than exasperate his enemies; so she rose, with an effort. Her
limbs felt heavy.

"Out now, take this broom, you sot, and sweep the floor."

Cyrene came out and proceeded to brush aside the dust between the piles
of metal. Wife Gougeon sat back on a block of wood and laughed, in
immense enjoyment.

"So you were a baroness once, one of the heretofores? Well, I like
baronesses to do my dirty work for me and Montmorencys for my sweeps.
You never thought the people would arrive at this, eh? You thought, you
aristocrats, that you could have the fine houses and we could do all the
scullery work. How do you like it? Oh, I have dirtier work than that
that I will make you do. This is only the commencement. Sweep that board
clean, you pig!"

The woman fumed at Cyrene's silence.

"Have you no tongue, animal? Why don't you answer when I speak? I'll
teach you," and, her eyes glittering, she picked up an iron bolt and
threw it at her victim. It struck Cyrene's arm, bruising it severely.
The girl winced, but continued wielding the broom as meekly as before.

"Ah," went on Wife Gougeon, "do you know what I will do with you? I will
have your head sliced off. What nice necks you 'heretofores' have. I've
seen many a one chopped through."

"Hush, hush, dear citizeness Gougeon," said the Abbe, appearing near
by. "I brought the citizeness to you for protection; I wish to speak to
her apart--say in the chamber there."

Cyrene looked at him in sorrowful relief.

"Citizeness," he said, making the greatest effort at ingratiation, "I
have a few things to speak to you.