red. It is necessary to procure one hundred feet of strong rope.
It will make a very large bundle; but no matter. I will twist it around
me, envelop myself in a large cloak, and accompany you to the citadel.
You will send for Corporal Bavois; you will leave me alone with him in a
quiet place; I will explain our wishes."

M. de Sairmeuse shrugged his shoulders.

"And how will you procure a hundred feet of rope at this hour in
Montaignac? Will you go about from shop to shop? You might as well
trumpet your project at once."

"I shall attempt nothing of the kind. What I cannot do the friends of
the Escorval family will do."

The duke was about to offer some new objection when his son interrupted
him.

"Pray do not forget the danger that threatens us," he said, earnestly,
"nor the little time that is left us. I have committed a fault, leave me
to repair it."

And turning to Marie-Anne:

"You may consider the baron saved," he pursued; "but it is necessary
for me to confer with one of his friends. Return at once to the Hotel de
France and tell the cure to meet me on the Place d'Armes, where I go to
await him."

CHAPTER XXX

Though among the first to be arrested at the time of the panic before
Montaignac, the Baron d'Escorval had not for an instant deluded himself
with false hopes.

"I am a lost man," he thought. And confronting death calmly, he now
thought only of the danger that threatened his son.

His mistake before the judges was the result of his preoccupation.

He did not breathe freely until he saw Maurice led from the hall by Abbe
Midon and the friendly officers, for he knew that his son would try to
confess connection with the affair.

Then, calm and composed, with head erect, and steadfast eye, he listened
to the death-sentence.

In the confusion that ensued in removing the prisoners from the hall,
the baron found himself beside Chanlouineau, who had begun his noisy
lamentations.

"Courage, my boy," he said, indignant at such apparent cowardice.

"Ah! it is easy to talk," whined the young farmer.

Then seeing that no one was observing them, he leaned toward the baron,
and whispered:

"It is for you I am working. Save all your strength for to-night."

Chanlouineau's words and burning glance surprised M. d'Escorval, but he
attributed both to fear. When the guards took him back to his cell, he
threw himself upon his pallet, and before him rose that vision of the
last hour, which is at once