ill understand you. Tell
him it is my last wish; that he live--live for his mother!"

He said no more; the judges were returning.

Of the thirty prisoners, nine were declared not guilty, and released.

The remaining twenty-one, and M. d'Escorval and Chanlouineau were among
the number, were condemned to death.

But the smile had not once forsaken Chanlouineau's lips.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The abbe had been right in feeling he could trust the officers to whose
care he had confided Maurice.

Finding their entreaties would not induce him to leave the citadel, they
seized him and literally carried him away. He made the most desperate
efforts to escape; each step was a struggle.

"Leave me!" he exclaimed; "let me go where duty calls me. You only
dishonor me in pretending to save me."

His agony was terrible. He had thrown himself headlong into this absurd
undertaking, and now the responsibility of his acts had fallen upon
his father. He, the culprit, would live, and his innocent father would
perish on the guillotine. It was to this his love for Marie-Anne had led
him, that radiant love which in other days had smiled so joyously.

But our capacity for suffering has its limits.

When they had carried him to the room in the hotel where his mother and
Marie-Anne were waiting in agonized surprise, that irresistible torpor
which follows suffering too intense for human endurance, crept over him.

"Nothing is decided yet," the officers answered in response to Mme.
d'Escorval's questions. "The cure will hasten here as soon as the
verdict is rendered."

Then, as they had promised not to lose sight of Maurice, they seated
themselves in gloomy silence.

The house was silent. One might have supposed the hotel deserted. At
last, a little before four o'clock, the abbe came in, followed by the
lawyer to whom the baron had confided his last wishes.

"My husband!" exclaimed Mme. d'Escorval, springing wildly from her
chair.

The priest bowed his head; she understood.

"Death!" she faltered. "They have condemned him!"

And overcome by the terrible blow, she sank back, inert, with hanging
arms.

But the weakness did not last long; she again sprang up, her eyes
brilliant with heroic resolve.

"We must save him!" she exclaimed. "We must wrest him from the scaffold.
Up, Maurice! up, Marie-Anne! No more weak lamentations, we must to work!
You, also, gentlemen, will aid me. I can count upon your assistance,
Monsieur le Cure. W