le voice breaks off in sobs.

The idea strikes her that, if they can only see the helpless creature,
they will have pity. She calls:

"Louise, stand up--they want to see you!"

The cripple Pierre aids Louise to her feet. She stands there alone, a
picture of abject misery.

"You see!" cries Henriette. "Blind--no one to care for her!"

* * * * *

The dandified dictator of France fixes fishy eyes on the little person
in the dock. One affected hand has raised a double lorgnette through
which he peers at her. He muses, strokes a long nostril with his
forefinger, recollects something which causes him to curl his lip:

Henriette's door slam on the obscure Maximilian Robespierre finds its
re-echo to day at the gates of Death. Ah, yes, he has placed the girl
of the Faubourg lodging now!

"You were an inmate of the prison for fallen women?" he asks coldly.

The clear, unashamed blue eyes would have told innocence if the words
had not.

"Yes, Monsieur, but I was not guilty."

Robespierre's delicate hand passes in the faintest movement across his
throat and toys with the neck ruffle underneath it.

His lips frame a dreadful word though he does not speak it. A nod to
Jacques-Forget-Not completes the by-play.

The servant imitates the master's gesture. This time, the drawing of
the hand across the throat is more decisive.

Jacques speaks the word that his master did not vocalize. The other
judges confirm it.

"GUILLOTINE!"

Henriette is borne shrieking out to the death chamber--"One hour with
her--only one hour--then I will go with him!"

But she and the Vaudrey are already being taken out together by the
attendants.

CHAPTER XXV

THE VOICE OF DANTON

We have explained that Danton took little part in the Government after
the repelling of the foreign foe and the commencement of the Terror.
He had no sympathy with the excesses of his former colleagues, but on
the other hand was subject to strange lassitudes or inhibitions that
oft paralyzed his spirit except at the supreme hour.

Saving France had been his real job.

Among these petty and mean minds seeking power or pelf or the
repayment of some ancient grudge, Danton had nothing to do! He loved
his frontier fighters--men who, the same as himself, dared all for
France.

They were somewhat like our cowboys of the Western plains. Born to the
saddle; recruited for the northern cavalry; supremely successful in