eforehand that it is news of Danville."

"You are right; my bad news is news of him."

"He has discovered the secret of our escape from the guillotine?"

"No--he has not a suspicion of it. He believes--as his mother, as every
one does--that you were both executed the day after the Revolutionary
Tribunal sentenced you to death."

"Lomaque, you speak positively of that belief of his--but you cannot be
certain of it."

"I can, on the most indisputable, the most startling evidence--on the
authority of Danville's own act. You have asked me to speak out--"

"I ask you again--I insist on it! Your news, Lomaque--your news, without
another word of preface!"

"You shall have it without another word of preface. Danville is on the
point of being married."

As the answer was given they both stopped by the bank of the stream, and
again looked each other in the face. There was a minute of dead silence
between them. During that minute, the water bubbling by happily over its
bed of pebbles seemed strangely loud, the singing of birds in a little
wood by the stream-side strangely near and shrill, in both their ears.
The light breeze, for all its midday warmth, touched their cheeks
coldly; and the spring sunlight pouring on their faces felt as if it
were glimmering on them through winter clouds.

"Let us walk on," said Trudaine, in a low voice. "I was prepared for bad
news, yet not for that. Are you certain of what you have just told me?"

"As certain as that the stream here is flowing by our side. Hear how
I made the discovery, and you will doubt no longer. Before last week
I knew nothing of Danville, except that his arrest on suspicion by
Robespierre's order was, as events turned out, the saving of his life.
He was imprisoned, as I told you, on the evening after he had heard
your names read from the death-list at the prison grate. He remained
in confinement at the Temple, unnoticed in the political confusion
out-of-doors, just as you remained unnoticed at St. Lazare, and he
profited precisely in the same manner that you profited by the timely
insurrection which overthrew the Reign of Terror. I knew this, and
I knew that he walked out of prison in the character of a persecuted
victim of Robespierre's--and, for better than three years past, I knew
no more. Now listen. Last week I happened to be waiting in the shop
of my employer, Citizen Clairfait, for some papers to take into the
counting-house, when an old man enters with a se