the sections ringing the alarm. To their startled ears came later the
rolling of drums, and at one time they heard the sounds of a multitude
on the march. Paris was rising. Later still came the rattle of
small-arms in the distance and the deeper boom of cannon. Battle was
joined between the men of the sections and the men of the Court. The
people in arms had attacked the Tuileries. Wildest rumours flew in all
directions, and some of them found their way through the servants to the
Hotel Plougastel, of that terrible fight for the palace which was to end
in the purposeless massacre of all those whom the invertebrate monarch
abandoned there, whilst placing himself and his family under the
protection of the Assembly. Purposeless to the end, ever adopting
the course pointed out to him by evil counsellors, he prepared for
resistance only until the need for resistance really arose, whereupon he
ordered a surrender which left those who had stood by him to the last at
the mercy of a frenzied mob.

And while this was happening in the Tuileries, the two women at the
Hotel Plougastel still waited for the return of Rougane, though now
with ever-lessening hope. And Rougane did not return. The affair did
not appear so simple to the father as to the son. Rougane the elder was
rightly afraid to lend himself to such a piece of deception.

He went with his son to inform M. de Kercadiou of what had happened, and
told him frankly of the thing his son suggested, but which he dared not
do.

M. de Kercadiou sought to move him by intercessions and even by the
offer of bribes. But Rougane remained firm.

"Monsieur," he said, "if it were discovered against me, as it inevitably
would be, I should hang for it. Apart from that, and in spite of my
anxiety to do all in my power to serve you, it would be a breach of
trust such as I could not contemplate. You must not ask me, monsieur."

"But what do you conceive is going to happen?" asked the half-demented
gentleman.

"It is war," said Rougane, who was well informed, as we have seen. "War
between the people and the Court. I am desolated that my warning should
have come too late. But, when all is said, I do not think that you need
really alarm yourself. War will not be made on women." M. de Kercadiou
clung for comfort to that assurance after the mayor and his son had
departed. But at the back of his mind there remained the knowledge
of the traffic in which M. de Plougastel was engaged. What if th