You will excuse us, citizeness
Gougeon?"

"Republicans do not excuse and excuse like you 'heretofores.' If it were
not for the Galley, I would slice your neck to-morrow too. Go, and be
quick about it, Blacklegs, while I wait to see her sweep for me again."

Cyrene staggered after him in her weakness into her chamber again, and,
while she sat upon her pallet, he shut the door, took a candle down from
a beam, and lit it.

"Do not mind her," he said while doing so. "She is a Jacobiness."

She looked at him as closely as her fevered sight permitted, and saw
that he was shivering with excitement and his long face and downcast
eyes contorting.

She sat speechless, unable to comprehend him.

"Madame Baroness," said he, "have you never wondered at your long escape
from the perils of these times? When the mansions of others were burned,
your house has been free from molestation; when their goods were
appropriated by the nation, yours have been left intact; when all
aristocrats have been sent to the guillotine, you have slept in safety.
Have you not thought this strange?"

The questioning seemed to be lost upon her, except for a nod.

"Did you never," he went on, "suspect that some power was protecting
you, and ask by whose influence you were thus surrounded and your peace
secured? Did you never recognise a faithfulness which relaxed at no
moment, a care which was unlimited--in a word, a secret friend at the
source of affairs? Madame, I was that friend."

He stopped and looked at her, his increasing excitement overcoming his
stealth. She was moved, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

"I am grateful, Abbe Jude; let me say it from my heart. You have been
wronged by us. We believed you were different."

At the tribute his eager look intensified itself into a piercing gaze
which made her feel dread of him.

"Yes, I was that secret friend," he cried. "It was I who protected you
at the sections, I struck your name from the lists of proscriptions, I
diverted the marches of the patriots from your portals. Do you think all
this would be done for three years without true faithfulness?"

"You have indeed proved yourself a loyal friend."

"More than that," he exclaimed; "it was more than loyalty, it was
worship! Madame, believe me your name has always been to me a sacred
adoration, a passion, an affection beyond expression. Do you doubt it?
Know that I loved you from the first moment I saw you in the house of
the Princess de Poi