spierre for your conduct," Marc
Antoine threatened him.

"Aha!" Carrier revealed his teeth in a smile of ineffable wickedness. He
slipped from the bed, and crouching slightly as if about to spring, he
pointed a lean finger at his captive.

"You are of those with whom it is dangerous to deal publicly, and you
presume upon that. But you can be dealt with privily, and you shall. I
have you, and, by--, you shall not escape me, you--!"

Marc Antoine looked into the Representative's face, and saw there the
wickedness of his intent. He stiffened. Nature had endowed him with
wits, and he used them now.

"Citizen Carrier," he said, "I understand. I am to be murdered to-night
in the gloom and the silence. But you shall perish after me in daylight,
and amid the execrations of the people. You may have intercepted my
letters to my father and to Robespierre. But if I do not leave Nantes,
my father will come to ask an account of you, and you will end your life
on the scaffold like the miserable assassin that you are."

Of all that tirade, but one sentence had remained as if corroded into
the mind of Carrier. "My letters to my father and to Robespierre," the
astute Marc Antoine had said. And Marc Antoine saw the Representative's
mouth loosen, saw a glint of fear replace the ferocity in his dark eyes.

What Marc Antoine intended to suggest had instantly leapt to Carrier's
mind--that there had been a second letter which his agents had missed.
They should pay for that. But, meanwhile, if it were true, he dare not
for his neck's sake go further in this matter. He may have suspected
that it was not true. But he had no means of testing that suspicion.
Marc Antoine, you see, was subtle.

"Your father?" growled the Representative. "Who is your father?"

"The Deputy Jullien."

"What?" Carrier straightened himself, affecting an immense astonishment.
"You are the son of the Deputy Julien?" He burst into a laugh. He came
forward, holding out both his hands. He could be subtle, too, you see.
"My friend, why did you not say so sooner? See in what a ghastly mistake
you have let me flounder. I imagined you--of course, it was foolish of
me--to be a proscribed rascal from Angers, of the same name."

He had fallen upon Marc Antoine's neck, and was embracing him.

"Forgive me, my friend!" he besought him. "Come and dine with me
to-morrow, and we will laugh over it together."

But Marc Antoine had no mind to dine with Carrier, although he prom