or some
time, for the man had become so moody and savage that he had feared ill
would come of it. He was the same man who nearly stabbed me three months
ago, taking me for Dampierre."

"It is shocking to think that you have killed a man, Cuthbert."

"It may be shocking to you, Mary, but the matter does not weigh on my
conscience at all. In the first place I had no idea of killing him, and
in the second, if I had not hit hard and quickly he would have fired
again and killed Arnold; lastly, I regard these Communists as no better
than mad dogs, and the chances are ten to one that he would have been
shot at the barricades, or afterwards, if he had not died when he did."

"It is all very terrible," Mary sighed.

"It has all been terrible from beginning to end, Mary, but as hundreds
of men are killed every day, and there will probably be thousands shot
when the troops enter Paris, I cannot regard the death of a would-be
murderer as a matter that will weigh on my mind for a moment. And now
what has been going on here? I hardly had time to notice whether the
firing was heavy."

"It has been tremendous," she said. "Several houses have been struck and
set on fire lower down but no shells have come this way."

"I have no doubt the troops imagine that all the houses down near Pont
du Jour, are crowded with Communists in readiness to repel any assault
that might be made. The army is doubtless furious at the destruction of
the Column of Vendome, which was in commemoration, not only of Napoleon,
but of the victories won by French armies. Moreover, I know from
newspapers that have been brought in from outside, and which I have seen
at the cafe, that they are incensed to the last degree by being detained
here, when but for this insurrection, they would have been given a
furlough to visit their families when they returned from the German
prisons. So that I can quite understand the artillerymen taking a shot
occasionally at houses they believe to be occupied by the insurgents.

"You may be sure of one thing, and that is that very little quarter
will be shown to the Communists by the troops. Even now, I cannot but
hope, that seeing the impossibility of resisting many days longer, and
the certainty of a terrible revenge if the troops have to fight their
way through the streets, the Communists will try to surrender on the
best terms they can get. Thiers has all along shown such extreme
unwillingness to force the fighting, that I am su