l this.

And as the heavy diligence trundles out of Caen and takes the open
country and the Paris road, not even the thought of the errand upon
which she goes, of her death-dealing and death-receiving mission,
can shake that normal calm. Here is no wild exaltation, no hysterical
obedience to hotly-conceived impulse. Here is purpose, as cold as it
is lofty, to liberate France and pay with her life for the privilege of
doing so.

That lover of hers, whom we are presently to see, has compared her
ineptly with Joan of Arc, that other maid of France. But Joan moved with
pomp in a gorgeous pageantry, amid acclamations, sustained by the heady
wine of combat and of enthusiasm openly indulged, towards a goal of
triumph. Charlotte travelled quietly in the stuffy diligence with the
quiet conviction that her days were numbered.

So normal did she appear to her travelling companions, that one among
them, with an eye for beauty, pestered her with amorous attentions, and
actually proposed marriage to her before the coach had rolled over the
bridge of Neuilly into Paris two days later.

She repaired to the Providence Inn in the Rue des Vieux Augustine, where
she engaged a room on the first floor, and then she set out in quest of
the Deputy Duperret. She had a letter of introduction to him from the
Girondin Barbaroux, with whom she had been on friendly terms at Caen.
Duperret was to assist her to obtain an interview with the Minister of
the Interior. She had undertaken to see the latter on the subject of
certain papers relating to the affairs of a nun of Caen, an old convent
friend of her own, and she was in haste to discharge this errand, so as
to be free for the great task upon which she was come.

From inquiries that she made, she learnt at once that Marat was ill, and
confined to his house. This rendered necessary a change of plans, and
the relinquishing of her project of affording him a spectacular death in
the crowded hall of the Convention.

The next day, which was Friday, she devoted to furthering the business
of her friend the nun. On Saturday morning she rose early, and by
six o'clock she was walking in the cool gardens of the Palais Royal,
considering with that almost unnatural calm of hers the ways and means
of accomplishing her purpose in the unexpected conditions that she
found.

Towards eight o'clock, when Paris was awakening to the business of the
day and taking down its shutters, she entered a cutler's shop in t