culottes are getting tired of bloodshed. There is no longer a
great crowd to see the executions, and the tumbrils pass along
without insults and imprecations being hurled against the
prisoners.

"The men of the Convention, having killed all the Girondists, are
now quarrelling among themselves. Robespierre is still all
powerful, but the party opposed to him are gaining in strength, and
there is a feeling that, ere long, there will be a terrible
struggle between them and, if Robespierre is beaten, there are many
of us who think that the reign of terror will come to an end. We
who are too insignificant to be watched talk these things over
together, when we gather at our cafe, and there is no one but
ourselves present; and even then we talk only in whispers, but we
all live in hopes of a change, and any change must surely be for
the better."

Chapter 16: A Friend At Last:

Day after day, Leigh went out into the town. More than once he saw
the fatal tumbrils going along in the distance, but he always
turned and walked in the opposite direction. Once or twice, having
changed his clothes for those of a workman, he fought his way into
the public galleries of the Convention and listened to the
speeches; in which it seemed to him that the principal object of
each speaker was to exceed those who had gone before him in
violence, and that the most violent was the most loudly applauded,
both by the galleries and the Assembly.

Patsey was most anxious to be off, but he urged that it would not
do to show haste. She did not leave the house at all, while he was
out almost all day. At the end of the fortnight, he told Monsieur
Tourrier that he had now finished his business, and asked him if he
could obtain from the maire of the arrondissement a pass down to
Havre.

"It is a pity that you did not get your pass direct from Arthenay,"
he said. "You say that your sister wants to make inquiries about a
husband there, and that you are taking her down, and you also say
that you are a sailor."

"Yes."

"Then, I should think that the best thing for you would be to dress
yourself as a sailor again. It will seem more natural than for you
to be in that civilian dress. I can go with you, and say that you
were strongly recommended to me by the maire's adjoint at Arthenay,
and that your papers are all en regle. If he asks why you did not
have your papers made out in the first place to Havre, say that you
had hoped to have been joined b