ttering a word, scarce making a movement, hardly daring to breathe. She
had told him before that this mysterious hero of romance was the talk of
the smart set to which she belonged; already, before this, her heart and
her imagination had been stirred by the thought of the brave man, who,
unknown to fame, had rescued hundreds of lives from a terrible, often an
unmerciful fate. She had but little real sympathy with those haughty
French aristocrats, insolent in their pride of caste, of whom the
Comtesse de Tournay de Basserive was so typical an example; but
republican and liberal-minded though she was from principle, she hated
and loathed the methods which the young Republic had chosen for
establishing itself. She had not been in Paris for some months; the
horrors and bloodshed of the Reign of Terror, culminating in the
September massacres, had only come across the Channel to her as a faint
echo. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, she had not known in their new guise
of bloody judiciaries, merciless wielders of the guillotine. Her very
soul recoiled in horror from these excesses, to which she feared her
brother Armand--moderate republican as he was--might become one day the
holocaust.

Then, when first she heard of this band of young English enthusiasts,
who, for sheer love of their fellowmen, dragged women and children, old
and young men, from a horrible death, her heart had glowed with pride
for them, and now, as Chauvelin spoke, her very soul went out to the
gallant and mysterious leader of the reckless little band, who risked
his life daily, who gave it freely and without ostentation, for the sake
of humanity.

Her eyes were moist when Chauvelin had finished speaking, the lace at
her bosom rose and fell with her quick, excited breathing; she no longer
heard the noise of drinking from the inn, she did not heed her husband's
voice or his inane laugh, her thoughts had gone wandering in search of
the mysterious hero! Ah! there was a man she might have loved, had he
come her way: everything in him appealed to her romantic imagination;
his personality, his strength, his bravery, the loyalty of those
who served under him in that same noble cause, and, above all, that
anonymity which crowned him, as if with a halo of romantic glory.

"Find him for France, citoyenne!"

Chauvelin's voice close to her ear roused her from her dreams. The
mysterious hero had vanished, and, not twenty yards away from her, a man
was drinking and laughin