as well. There were steps on the stairs, which at that alarming
noise were instantly quickened. Yet ere they had reached the top La
Boulaye was at the door vociferating wildly.

Into the room came the hostess, breathless and grinning with anxiety,
and behind her came Guyot, who, startled by the din, had hastened up to
inquire into its cause.

At sight of the Captain stretched upon the floor there was a scream from
Mother Capoulade and an oath from the soldier.

"Mon Dieu! what has happened?" she cried, hurrying forward.

"Miserable!" exclaimed La Boulaye, with well-feigned anger. "It seems
that your wretched hovel is tumbling to pieces, and that men are not
safe beneath its roof." And he indicated the broken plaster and the
fallen lamp.

"How did it happen, Citoyenne-deputy?" asked Guyot; for all that he drew
the only possible inference from what he saw.

"Can you not see how it happened?" returned La Boulaye, impatiently.
"As for you, wretched woman, you will suffer for it, I promise you. The
nation is likely to demand a high price for Captain Charlot's injuries."

"But, bon Dieu, how am I to blame?" wailed the frightened woman.

"To blame," echoed La Boulaye, in a furious voice. "Are you not to blame
that you let rooms in a crazy hovel? Let them to emigres as much as you
will, but if you let them to good patriots and thereby endanger their
lives you must take the consequences. And the consequences in this case
are likely to be severe, malheureuse."

He turned now to Guyot, who was kneeling by the Captain, and looking to
his hurt.

"Here, Guyot," he commanded sharply, "reconduct the Citoyenne to her
coach. I will perhaps see her again later, when the Captain shall have
recovered consciousness. You, Citoyenne Capoulade, assist me to carry
him to bed."

Each obeyed him, Guyot readily, as became a soldier, and the hostess
trembling with the dread which La Boulaye's words had instilled into
her. They got Charlot to bed, and when a half-hour or so later he
recovered consciousness, it was to find Guyot watching at his bed-side.
Bewildered, he demanded an explanation of his present position and
of the pain in his head, which brought him the memory of a sudden and
unaccountable blow he had received, which was the last thing that he
remembered. Guyot, who had never for a moment entertained a doubt of the
genuineness of the mise-en-scene La Boulaye had prepared, answered him
with the explanation of how he had been s