ci-devant Vicomte. Robespierre looked up
at him with a shade of polite regret upon his cadaverous face, and with
polite regret he deplored that Caron should have so bound himself.

So absorbed were they, the one in pleading, the other in resisting,
that neither noticed the opening of the door, nor yet the girl who stood
observing them from the threshold.

"If this man dies," cried La Boulaye at last, "I am dishonoured.

"It is regrettable," returned Robespierre, "that you should have pledged
your word in the matter. You will confess, Caron, that it was a little
precipitate. Enfin," he ended, crumpling the document he had signed and
tossing it under the table, "you must extricate yourself as best you
can. I am sorry, but I cannot give him to you."

Caron's face was very white and his hands were clenched convulsively. It
is questionable whether in that moment he had not flung himself upon the
Incorruptible, and enforced that which hitherto he had only besought,
but that in that instant the girl stepped into the room.

"And is it really you, Caron?" came the melodious voice of Cecile.

La Boulaye started round to confront her, and stifled a curse at the
untimely interruption which Robespierre was blessing as most timely.

"It is--it is, Citoyenne," he answered shortly, to add more shortly
still: "I am here on business with the Citizen, your uncle."

But before the girl could so much as appreciate the rebuke he levelled
at her intrusion, her uncle had come to the rescue.

"The business, however, is at an end. Take charge of this good Caron,
Cecile, whilst I make ready for my journey."

Thus, sore at heart, and chagrined beyond words, La Boulaye was forced
to realise his defeat, and to leave the presence of the Incorruptible.
But with Cecile he went no farther than the landing.

"If you will excuse me, Citoyenne," he said abstractedly, "I will take
my leave of you."

"But I shall not excuse you, Caron," she said, refusing to see his
abstraction. "You will stay to dinner--"

"I am sorry beyond measure, but--"

"You shall stay," she interrupted. "Come, Caron. It is months since you
were with us. We will make a little fete in honour of your yesterday's
triumph," she promised him, sidling up to him with a bewitching glance
of blue eyes, and the most distracting toss of golden curls upon an
ivory neck.

But to such seductions Caron proved as impervious as might a man of
stone. He excused himself with cold polite