when madame's young footman, Jacques, the most trusted
of her servants, burst into their presence unceremoniously with a scared
face, bringing the announcement that a man who had just climbed over the
garden wall professed himself a friend of madame's, and desired to be
brought immediately to her presence.

"But he looks like a sansculotte, madame," the staunch fellow warned
her.

Her thoughts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane.

"Bring him in," she commanded breathlessly.

Jacques went out, to return presently accompanied by a tall man in a
long, shabby, and very ample overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that was
turned down all round, and adorned by an enormous tricolour cockade.
This hat he removed as he entered.

Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his hair, although now
in some disorder, bore signs of having been carefully dressed. It was
clubbed, and it carried some lingering vestiges of powder. The young
footman wondered what it was in the man's face, which was turned from
him, that should cause his mistress to out and recoil. Then he found
himself dismissed abruptly by a gesture.

The newcomer advanced to the middle of the salon, moving like a man
exhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned against a table, across
which he confronted Mme. de Plougastel. And she stood regarding him, a
strange horror in her eyes.

In the background, on a settle at the salon's far end, sat Aline staring
in bewilderment and some fear at a face which, if unrecognizable through
the mask of blood and dust that smeared it, was yet familiar. And then
the man spoke, and instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquis
de La Tour d'Azyr.

"My dear friend," he was saying, "forgive me if I startled you. Forgive
me if I thrust myself in here without leave, at such a time, in such a
manner. But... you see how it is with me. I am a fugitive. In the course
of my distracted flight, not knowing which way to turn for safety, I
thought of you. I told myself that if I could but safely reach your
house, I might find sanctuary."

"You are in danger?"

"In danger?" Almost he seemed silently to laugh at the unnecessary
question. "If I were to show myself openly in the streets just now, I
might with luck contrive to live for five minutes! My friend, it has
been a massacre. Some few of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end,
to be hunted to death in the streets. I doubt if by this time a single
Swiss survives. They had the worst