said,--

"John Cassidy is happier where he lies than we are. Is this your only
missive?"

"No; I have a letter for Mr Lestrange, and beg you to tell me his
address."

At that moment she looked round, and gave a little scream as first a
footstep, then a voice, fell on her ear.

"Adele," said a lean, bilious-looking man, with a hard, pinched face and
knit lips, approaching from one of the side-walks--"Adele, what do you
here?"

"My husband," said the lady, so far recovering her composure as to smile
and advance to meet him, "you are come in a good moment. This lad bears
a missive for you, and, having discovered me in the crowd, was begging
me to deliver it for him. Here it is."

Duport took the letter with a frigid glance at me as if to say he
believed not a word of the story, and mechanically tore it open.

I watched his eyebrows give a sudden twitch as he read the contents.

"Who gave you this?" demanded he.

I repeated my story, which once more he received with an incredulous
stare.

Then turning to his wife he said, half to himself, half to her,--

"From Edward Fitzgerald on behalf of his kinsman, Sillery. But too
late. Come, Adele. The twenty-two are before the Tribunal to-day, and
I have a place for you in the gallery."

And without heeding me further (for which I was devoutly thankful), he
drew his wife's arm in his own and walked off rapidly in the direction
of the Tuileries.

Lest my reader should suppose that my letter to Depute Duport was one of
great moment to my own story, let me say at once it was not so, at least
directly. It was, as the deputy had said, a letter addressed by Lord
Edward Fitzgerald, a young Irish nobleman (of whom more hereafter), to
Duport, claiming, for the sake of old comradeship, his good offices on
behalf of one of the twenty-two impeached Girondist deputies, Sillery by
name, whose adopted daughter, or, rather, the adopted daughter of whose
wife, Lord Edward had lately married. Many letters of the kind were no
doubt constantly coming into the hands of powerful members of the
Convention just then; and many, like it, came too late.

Next morning, so I was told, the whole of the accused, and Sillery first
of the batch, were guillotined; the headsman doing his work with such
dexterity that in thirty-one minutes the twenty-two were all disposed
of.

My letter to Mr Lestrange (which I still carried in my stocking) was
another matter, and concerned me considerably,