e rumors of a terrible discovery made by Carnot, of a desperate
resolution taken by Tallien. Men watching behind the scenes see that
the last days of the Terror are at hand. If Robespierre is beaten in the
approaching struggle, you are saved--for the new reign must be a Reign
of Mercy. If he conquers, I have only put off the date of your death and
your sister's, and have laid my own neck under the axe. Those are your
chances--this is all I can do."

He paused, and Trudaine again endeavored to speak such words as might
show that he was not unworthy of the deadly risk which Lomaque was
prepared to encounter. But once more the chief agent peremptorily and
irritably interposed:

"I tell you, for the third time," he said, "I will listen to no
expressions of gratitude from you till I know when I deserve them. It is
true that I recollect your father's timely kindness to me--true that I
have not forgotten what passed, five years since at your house by the
river-side. I remember everything, down to what you would consider the
veriest trifle--that cup of coffee, for instance, which your sister kept
hot for me. I told you then that you would think better of me some day.
I know that you do now. But this is not all. You want to glorify me to
my face for risking my life for you. I won't hear you, because my risk
is of the paltriest kind. I am weary of my life. I can't look back to it
with pleasure. I am too old to look forward to what is left of it
with hope. There was something in that night at your house before the
wedding--something in what you said, in what your sister did--which
altered me. I have had my days of gloom and self-reproach, from time
to time, since then. I have sickened at my slavery, and subjection, and
duplicity, and cringing, first under one master then under another. I
have longed to look back at my life, and comfort myself with the sight
of some good action, just as a frugal man comforts himself with the
sight of his little savings laid by in an old drawer. I can't do
this, and I want to do it. The want takes me like a fit, at uncertain
intervals--suddenly, under the most incomprehensible influences. A
glance up at the blue sky--starlight over the houses of this great city,
when I look out at the night from my garret window--a child's voice
coming suddenly, I don't know where from--the piping of my neighbor's
linnet in his little cage--now one trifling thing, now another--wakes up
that want in me in a moment.