are saving is that of a very worthless and
vicious individual. Of your ingratitude to me we will not speak.
But even now, in the eleventh hour, I would have you bethink you of
yourself."

He held out his hands to him, and entreaty was stamped upon
Robespierre's countenance to a degree which perhaps no man had yet seen.
"Bethink you, cher Caron--" he began again. But the young man shook his
head.

"My friend, my best of friends," he exclaimed, "I beg that you will
not make it harder for me. I am resolved, and your entreaties do but
heighten my pain of thwarting your--the only pain that in this supreme
hour I am experiencing. It is not a difficult thing to die, Maximilien.
Were I to live, I must henceforth lead a life of unsatisfied desire. I
must even hanker and sigh after a something that is unattainable. I die,
and all this is extinguished with me. At the very prospect my desires
fade immeasurably. Let me go in peace, and with your forgiveness."

Robespierre eyed him a moment or two in astonishment. Then he made an
abrupt gesture of impatience.

"Fool that you are! It is suicide you are committing. And for what?
For a dream a shadow. Is this like a man, Caron'? Is this--Will you be
still, you animal?" he barked at a gaoler who had once before touched
him upon the arm. "Do you not see that I am occupied?"

But the man leant forward, and said some words hurriedly into
Robespierre's ear, which cast the petulance out of his face and mind,
and caused him of a sudden to become very attentive.

"Ah?" he said at last. Then, with a sudden briskness: "Let the Citizen
La Boulaye not go forth until I return," he bade the gaoler; and to
Caron he said: "You will have the goodness to await my return."

With that he turned and stepped briskly across the hall and through the
door, which the gaoler, all equality notwithstanding, hastened to open
for him with as much servility as ever the haughtiest aristocrat had
compelled.

Saving that single gaoler, La Boulaye was alone in the spacious hall
of the Conciergerie. From without they heard the wild clamouring and
Ca-iraing of the mob. Chafing at this fresh delay, which was as a
prolongation of his death-agony, La Boulaye was pacing to and fro, the
ring of his footsteps on the stone floor yielding a hollow, sepulchral
echo.

"Is he never returning?" he cried at last; and as if in answer to his
question, the drums suddenly began to roll, and the vociferations of the
rabble swell