once been beautiful, but it was torn and
soiled; his face was beautiful still, but it was marred by the hideous
eagerness of a face on which famine has laid her hand--he was
starving. As this man came out from the warehouse, another man came
down the street. His dress was not beautiful, neither was he. There
was a red look about him--he wore a red flannel cap, tricolour
ribbons, and had something red upon his hands, which was neither
ribbon nor flannel. He also looked hungry; but it was not for food.
The other stopped when he saw him, and pulled something from his
pocket. It was a watch, a repeater, in a gold filigree case of
exquisite workmanship, with raised figures depicting the loves of an
Arcadian shepherd and shepherdess; and, as it lay on the white hand of
its owner, it bore an evanescent fragrance that seemed to recall
scenes as beautiful and as completely past as the days of pastoral
perfection, when

"All the world and love were young
And truth in every shepherd's tongue."

The young man held it to the other and spoke. "It was my mother's," he
said, with an appealing glance of violet eyes; "I would not part with
it but that I am starving. Will you get me food?"

"You are hiding?" said he of the red cap.

"Is that a crime in these days?" said the other, with a smile that
would in other days have been irresistible.

The man took the watch, shaded the donor's beautiful face with a rough
red cap and tricolour ribbon, and bade him follow him. He, who had but
lately come to Paris, dragged his exhausted body after his conductor,
hardly noticed the crowds in the streets, the signs by which the man
got free passage for them both, or their entrance by a little
side-door into a large dark building, and never knew till he was
delivered to one of the gaolers that he had been led into the prison
of the Abbaye. Then the wretch tore the cap of Liberty from his
victim's head, and pointed to him with a fierce laugh.

"He wants food, this aristocrat. He shall not wait long--there is a
feast in the court below, which he shall join presently. See to it,
Antoine! And you, _Monsieur_, _Mons-ieur_! listen to the banqueters."

He ceased, and in the silence yells and cries from a court below came
up like some horrid answer to imprecation.

The man continued--

"He has paid for his admission, this Monsieur. It belonged to Madame
his mother. Behold!"

He held the watch above his head, and dashed it with insane fury