a
hawker of the "Voix du Peuple" still stubbornly vociferated: "The new
scandal of the African Railway Lines! The thirty-two bribe-takers of the
Chamber and the Senate! The approaching fall of the ministry!"

Pierre was at last managing to stop a cab when he heard a person who ran
by say to another, "The ministry? Ah, well! that bomb will mend it right
enough!"

Then the brothers seated themselves in the cab, which carried them away.
And now, over the whole of rumbling Paris black night had gathered, an
unforgiving night, in which the stars foundered amidst the mist of crime
and anger that had risen from the house-roofs. The great cry of justice
swept by amidst the same terrifying flapping of wings which Sodom and
Gomorrah once heard bearing down upon them from all the black clouds of
the horizon.

BOOK II.

I. REVOLUTIONISTS

IN that out-of-the-way street at Neuilly, along which nobody passed after
dusk, Pierre's little house was now steeped in deep slumber under the
black sky; each of its shutters closed, and not a ray of light stealing
forth from within. And one could divine, too, the profound quietude of
the little garden in the rear, a garden empty and lifeless, benumbed by
the winter cold.

Pierre had several times feared that his brother would faint away in the
cab in which they were journeying. Leaning back, and often sinking down,
Guillaume spoke not a word. And terrible was the silence between them--a
silence fraught with all the questions and answers which they felt it
would be useless and painful to exchange at such a time. However, the
priest was anxious about the wound, and wondered to what surgeon he might
apply, desirous as he was of admitting only a sure, staunch man into the
secret, for he had noticed with how keen a desire to disappear his
brother had sought to hide himself.

Until they reached the Arc de Triomphe the silence remained unbroken. It
was only there that Guillaume seemed to emerge from the prostration of
his reverie. "Mind, Pierre," said he, "no doctor. We will attend to this
together."

Pierre was on the point of protesting, but he realised that it would be
useless to discuss the subject at such a moment, and so he merely waved
his hand to signify that he should act in spite of the prohibition were
it necessary. In point of fact, his anxiety had increased, and, when the
cab at last drew up before the house, it was with real relief that he saw
his brother alight