a long silence in which there was something
terrifying, "I am here to enforce the laws of the Republic."

Madame de Dey shuddered.

"Have you nothing to reveal to me?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she replied, astonished.

"Ah! madame," cried the prosecutor, changing his tone and seating
himself beside her, "at this moment, for want of a word between us, you
and I may be risking our heads on the scaffold. I have too long observed
your character, your soul, your manners, to share the error into which
you have persuaded your friends this evening. You are, I cannot doubt,
expecting your son."

The countess made a gesture of denial; but she had turned pale, the
muscles of her face contracted from the effort that she made to exhibit
firmness, and the implacable eye of the public prosecutor lost none of
her movements.

"Well, receive him," continued the functionary of the Revolution, "but
do not keep him under your roof later than seven o'clock in the morning.
To-morrow, at eight, I shall be at your door with a denunciation."

She looked at him with a stupid air that might have made a tiger
pitiful.

"I will prove," he continued in a kindly voice, "the falsity of the
denunciation, by making a careful search of the premises; and the nature
of my report will protect you in future from all suspicions. I will
speak of your patriotic gifts, your civic virtues, and that will save
you."

Madame de Dey feared a trap, and she stood motionless; but her face was
on fire, and her tongue stiff in her mouth. A rap sounded on the door.

"Oh!" cried the mother, falling on her knees, "save him! save him!"

"Yes, we will save him," said the official, giving her a look of
passion; "if it costs us our life, we will save him."

"I am lost!" she murmured, as the prosecutor raised her courteously.

"Madame," he said, with an oratorical movement, "I will owe you only--to
yourself."

"Madame, he has come," cried Brigitte, rushing in and thinking her
mistress was alone.

At sight of the public prosecutor, the old woman, flushed and joyous as
she was, became motionless and livid.

"Who has come?" asked the prosecutor.

"A recruit, whom the mayor has sent to lodge here," replied Brigitte,
showing the billet.

"True," said the prosecutor, reading the paper. "We expect a detachment
to-night."

And he went away.

The countess had too much need at this moment to believe in the
sincerity of her former attorney, to distrust his promise.