t of
waiting in the ante-room with the witnesses.--We can be civil here to
ladies like you.--You have a card about you?"

At this instant Asie and her lawyer were exactly in front of the window
of the guardroom whence the gendarmes could observe the gate of the
Conciergerie. The gendarmes, brought up to respect the defenders of the
widow and the orphan, were aware too of the prerogative of the gown,
and for a few minutes allowed the Baroness to remain there escorted by
a pleader. Asie listened to the terrible tales which a young lawyer is
ready to tell about that prison-gate. She would not believe that those
who were condemned to death were prepared for the scaffold behind those
bars; but the sergeant-at-arms assured her it was so.

"How much I should like to see it done!" cried she.

And there she remained, prattling to the lawyer and the sergeant, till
she saw Jacques Collin come out supported by two gendarmes, and preceded
by Monsieur Camusot's clerk.

"Ah, there is a chaplain no doubt going to prepare a poor wretch----"

"Not at all, Madame la Baronne," said the gendarme. "He is a prisoner
coming to be examined."

"What is he accused of?"

"He is concerned in this poisoning case."

"Oh! I should like to see him."

"You cannot stay here," said the sergeant, "for he is under close
arrest, and he must pass through here. You see, madame, that door leads
to the stairs----"

"Oh! thank you!" cried the Baroness, making for the door, to rush down
the stairs, where she at once shrieked out, "Oh! where am I?"

This cry reached the ear of Jacques Collin, who was thus prepared to
see her. The sergeant flew after Madame la Baronne, seized her by the
middle, and lifted her back like a feather into the midst of a group
of five gendarmes, who started up as one man; for in that guardroom
everything is regarded as suspicious. The proceeding was arbitrary, but
the arbitrariness was necessary. The young lawyer himself had cried
out twice, "Madame! madame!" in his horror, so much did he fear finding
himself in the wrong.

The Abbe Carlos Herrera, half fainting, sank on a chair in the
guardroom.

"Poor man!" said the Baroness. "Can he be a criminal?"

The words, though spoken low to the young advocate, could be heard
by all, for the silence of death reigned in that terrible guardroom.
Certain privileged persons are sometimes allowed to see famous criminals
on their way through this room or through the passages, so that