yor. "Why did you not--" Then
he stopped abruptly, his mouth remaining open. He found himself
surrounded by a group of grim, silent mutes, with arms in their hands,
and in a twinkling it flashed into his mind that these were the eleven
chiefs of the Girondins, whom he had been warned to keep watch for. He
had come to catch a pigeon and had caught a crow. He turned pale and
his eyes dropped. "Who are--who are these gentlemen?" he stammered, in
a ludicrously altered tone.

"Some volunteers of Quumpen, returning home," replied Barbaroux, with
ironical smoothness.

"You have your papers, citizens?" the mayor asked, mechanically; and
he took a step back towards the door, and looked over his shoulder.

"Here they are!" said Petion rudely, thrusting a packet into his
hands. "They are in order."

The mayor took them, and longing only to see the outside of the
door, pretended to look through them, his little heart going
pit-a-pat within him. "They seem to be in order," he assented,
feebly. "I need not trouble you further, citizens. I came here under
a misapprehension, I find, and I wish you a good journey."

He knew, as he backed out, that he was cutting a poor figure. He would
fain have made a more dignified retreat. But before these men,
fugitives and outlaws as they were, he felt, though he was Mayor of
Carbaix, almost as small a man as did Michel Tellier. These were the
men of the Revolution. They had bearded nobles and pulled down kings.
There was Barbaroux, who had grappled with Marat; and Petion, the
Mayor of the Bastille. The little Mayor of Carbaix knew greatness when
he saw it. He turned tail, and hurried back to his fireside, his
body-guard not a whit behind him.

Five minutes later the men he feared and envied came out also, and
went their way, passing in single file into the darkness which brooded
over the great monolith; beginning, brave hearts, another of the few
stages which still lay between them and the guillotine. Then in the
cottage there remained only Michel and Jeanne. She sat by the dying
embers, silent, and lost in thought. He leaned against the wall, his
eyes roving ceaselessly, but always when his gaze met hers it fell.
Barbaroux had conquered him. It was not until Jeanne had risen to
close the door, and he was alone, that he wrung his hands, and
muttered: "Five crowns! Five crowns gone and wasted!"

"HUMAN DOCUMENTS."

Facing this pastel, in an opposite corner of the room, another