r. The disorganization was so complete, that when the
commissioners from the new Government came to St. Lazare, some of us
were actually half starving from want of the bare necessities of
life. To inquire separately into our cases was found to be impossible.
Sometimes the necessary papers were lost; sometimes what documents
remained were incomprehensible to the new commissioners. They were
obliged, at last, to make short work of it by calling us up before them
in dozens. Tried or not tried, we had all been arrested by the tyrant,
had all been accused of conspiracy against him, and were all ready to
hail the new Government as the salvation of France. In nine cases out
of ten, our best claim to be discharged was derived from these
circumstances. We were trusted by Tallien and the men of the Ninth
Thermidor, because we had been suspected by Robespierre, Couthon, and
St. Just. Arrested informally, we were now liberated informally. When
it came to my sister's turn and mine, we were not under examination
five minutes. No such thing as a searching question was asked of us; I
believe we might even have given our own names with perfect impunity.
But I had previously instructed Rose that we were to assume our mother's
maiden name--Maurice. As the citizen and citoyenne Maurice, accordingly,
we passed out of prison--under the same name we have lived ever since
in hiding here. Our past repose has depended, our future happiness will
depend, on our escape from death being kept the profoundest secret among
us three. For one all sufficient reason, which you can easily guess at,
the brother and sister Maurice must still know nothing of Louis Trudaine
and Rose Danville, except that they were two among the hundreds of
victims guillotined during the Reign of Terror."

He spoke the last sentence with a faint smile, and with the air of a man
trying, in spite of himself, to treat a grave subject lightly. His face
clouded again, however, in a moment, when he looked toward his sister,
as he ceased. Her work had once more dropped on her lap, her face was
turned away so that he could not see it; but he knew by the trembling
of her clasped hands, as they rested on her knee, and by the slight
swelling of the veins on her neck which she could not hide from him,
that her boasted strength of nerve had deserted her. Three years of
repose had not yet enabled her to hear her marriage name uttered, or to
be present when past times of deathly suffering and t