ript," said the mayor astutely. "All right, all right!" he
added, with a wave of the hand, seeing that the young man was about to
speak. "We know where to send you. There, off with you, _Citizen
Jussieu_," and he handed over the billet.

There was a tinge of irony in the stress the magistrate laid on the two
last words while he held out a billet on Mme. de Dey. The conscript
read the direction curiously.

"He knows quite well that he has not far to go, and when he gets
outside he will very soon cross the marketplace," said the mayor to
himself, as the other went out. "He is uncommonly bold! God guide
him!... He has an answer ready for everything. Yes, but if somebody
else had asked to see his papers it would have been all up with him!"

The clocks in Carentan struck half-past nine as he spoke. Lanterns were
being lit in Mme. de Dey's antechamber, servants were helping their
masters and mistresses into sabots, greatcoats, and calashes. The card
players settled their accounts, and everybody went out together, after
the fashion of all little country towns.

"It looks as if the prosecutor meant to stop," said a lady, who noticed
that that important personage was not in the group in the market-place,
where they all took leave of one another before going their separate
ways home. And, as a matter of fact, that redoubtable functionary was
alone with the Countess, who waited trembling till he should go. There
was something appalling in their long silence.

"Citoyenne," said he at last, "I am here to see that the laws of the
Republic are carried out--"

Mme. de Dey shuddered.

"Have you nothing to tell me?"

"Nothing!" she answered, in amazement.

"Ah! madame," cried the prosecutor, sitting down beside her and
changing his tone. "At this moment, for lack of a word, one of us--you
or I--may carry our heads to the scaffold. I have watched your
character, your soul, your manner, too closely to share the error into
which you have managed to lead your visitors to-night. You are
expecting your son, I could not doubt it."

The Countess made an involuntary sign of denial, but her face had grown
white and drawn with the struggle to maintain the composure that she
did not feel, and no tremor was lost on the merciless prosecutor.

"Very well," the Revolutionary official went on, "receive him; but do
not let him stay under your roof after seven o'clock to-morrow morning;
for to-morrow, as soon as it is light, I shall come with