sing to enlighten him later.

Since then Caron had waited, and now it was more than time that
Mademoiselle made some sign. Or was it that neither Ombreval's craven
entreaties nor his own short message had affected her? Was she wholly
heartless and likely to prove as faithless to the Vicomte in his hour of
need as she had proved to him?

With a toss of the head he dismissed her from his thoughts, and dipping
his quill, he began to write.

From the street came the dull roll of beaten drums and the rhythmical
fall of marching feet. But the sound was too common in revolutionary
Paris to arrest attention, and he wrote on, heeding it as little as he
did the gruff voice of a pastry-cook crying his wares, the shriller call
of a milkman, or the occasional rumblings of passing vehicles. But of a
sudden one of those rumblings ceased abruptly at his door. He heard the
rattle of hoofs and the grind of the wheel against the pavement, and
looking up, he glanced across at the ormolu timepiece on his overmantel.
It was not yet four o'clock.

Wondering whether the visitor might be for him or for the tenant of
the floor above, he sat listening until his door opened and his
official--the euphemism of "servant" in the revolutionary lexicon--came
to announce that a woman was below, asking to see him.

Now for all that he believed himself to have become above emotions where
Mademoiselle de Bellecour was concerned, he felt his pulses quicken at
the very thought that this might be she at last.

"What manner of woman, Brutus?" he asked.

"A pretty woman, Citizen," answered Brutus, with a grin. "It is the
Citoyenne Deshaix."

La Boulaye made an impatient gesture.

"Fool, why did you not say so," he cried sharply.

"Fool, you did not ask me," answered the servant, with that touching,
fraternal frankness adopted by all true patriots. He was a thin,
under-sized man of perhaps thirty years of age, and dressed in black,
with a decency--under La Boulaye's suasion--that was rather at variance
with his extreme democracy. His real name was Ferdinand, but, following
a fashion prevailing among the ultra-republicans, he had renamed himself
after the famous Roman patriot.

La Boulaye toyed a moment with his pen, a frown darkening his brow.
Then:

"Admit her," he sighed wearily.

And presently she came, a pretty woman, as Brutus had declared, very
fair, and with the innocent eyes of a baby. She was small of stature,
and by the egregious height