a denunciation
that I will have made out, and--"

She looked at him, and the dull misery in her eyes would have softened
a tiger.

"I will make it clear that the denunciation was false by making a
thorough search," he went on in a gentle voice; "my report shall be
such that you will be safe from any subsequent suspicion. I shall make
mention of your patriotic gifts, your civism, and _all_ of us will be
safe."

Mme. de Dey, fearful of a trap, sat motionless, her face afire, her
tongue frozen. A knock at the door rang through the house.

"Oh!..." cried the terrified mother, falling upon her knees; "save him!
save him!"

"Yes, let us save him!" returned the public prosecutor, and his eyes
grew bright as he looked at her, "if it costs _us_ our lives!"

"Lost!" she wailed. The prosecutor raised her politely.

"Madame," said he with a flourish of eloquence, "to your own free will
alone would I owe--"

"Madame, he is--" cried Brigitte, thinking that her mistress was alone.
At the sight of the public prosecutor, the old servant's joy-flushed
countenance became haggard and impassive.

"Who is it, Brigitte?" the prosecutor asked kindly, as if he too were
in the secret of the household.

"A conscript that the mayor has sent here for a night's lodging," the
woman replied, holding out the billet.

"So it is," said the prosecutor, when he had read the slip of paper. "A
battalion is coming here to-night."

And he went.

The Countess's need to believe in the faith of her sometime attorney
was so great, that she dared not entertain any suspicion of him. She
fled upstairs; she felt scarcely strength enough to stand; she opened
the door, and sprang, half dead with fear, into her son's arms.

"Oh! my child! my child!" she sobbed, covering him with almost frenzied
kisses.

"Madame!..." said a stranger's voice.

"Oh! it is not he!" she cried, shrinking away in terror, and she stood
face to face with the conscript, gazing at him with haggard eyes.

"_O saint bon Dieu!_ how like he is!" cried Brigitte.

There was silence for a moment; even the stranger trembled at the sight
of Mme. de Dey's face.

"Ah! monsieur," she said, leaning on the arm of Brigitte's husband,
feeling for the first time the full extent of a sorrow that had all but
killed her at its first threatening; "ah! monsieur, I cannot stay to
see you any longer ... permit my servants to supply my place, and to
see that you have all that you want."

She wen