s, and workmen were busy shoring it up
with beams. In the middle of the crowd there was an open circle,
surrounded by gendarmes, and kept clear of people. In the middle of it
lay a thing like a rather tall slim watering-pot, minus the handle. The
crowd, standing on tiptoe and peeping over the shoulders of their
guardians, shook their fists at this harmless-looking article and
apostrophised it with a wonderful wealth of passionate invectives.

"What in the world's the matter?" cried Miss Bussey, who was nervous in
a crowd.

"Revolution, I suppose;" responded Deane calmly, mid turning to his
nearest neighbor, he continued in the first French that came to him,
"Une autre revolution, n'est-ce-pas, Monsieur?"

The man stared, but a woman near him burst into a voluble explanation,
from the folds of which unlearned English ears disentangled, at the
third reiteration, the ominous word, "Dynamite;" and she pointed to the
watering-pot.

"Oh, it'll go off!" shrieked Miss Bussey.

"It's gone off," said Sir Roger. "We're too late," and there was a
touch of disappointment in his voice, as he turned and shouted to the
others, "Keep your seats! It's all over. Only an explosion."

"Only!" shuddered Miss Bussey. "It's a mercy we weren't killed."

It appeared that this mercy had not stopped at Miss Bussey and her
friends. Nobody had been killed--not even the magistrate on the third
floor for whose discipline and reformation the occurrence had been
arranged; and presently the carriages were allowed to proceed.

Lady Deane's grief at having missed so interesting an occasion was very
poignant.

"No, Roger," said she, "it is not a mere craving for horrors, or a
morbid love of excitement; I wish I had been there to observe the
crowd, because it's just at such moments that people reveal their true
selves. The veil is lifted--the veil of hypocrisy and convention--and
you see the naked soul."

"You could hear it too, Maud," observed Sir Roger. "Fine chance of
improving your French vocabulary. Still, I daresay you're right."

"I'm sure I am."

Deane looked at his wife meditatively.

"You think," he asked, "that being in danger might make people----"

"Reveal their inmost natures and feelings? I'm sure of it."

"Gad! Then we might try."

"What do you mean, Roger?"

"Nothing. You're going out with the General to-night? Very well, I
shall take a turn on my own hook."

As he strolled toward the smoking-room, he met Charlie Eller