he sound of
the angry words and threats, Jacques thought it best to awaken his master
from his feverish uncomfortable sleep, lest he should provoke more
enmity; and, tenderly lifting him up, he tried to adjust his own body, so
that it should serve as a rest and a pillow for the younger man. The
motion aroused Clement, and he began to talk in a strange, feverish way,
of Virginie, too,--whose name he would not have breathed in such a place
had he been quite himself. But Jacques had as much delicacy of feeling
as any lady in the land, although, mind you, he knew neither how to read
nor write,--and bent his head low down, so that his master might tell him
in a whisper what messages he was to take to Mademoiselle de Crequy, in
case--Poor Clement, he knew it must come to that! No escape for him now,
in Norman disguise or otherwise! Either by gathering fever or
guillotine, death was sure of his prey. Well! when that happened,
Jacques was to go and find Mademoiselle de Crequy, and tell her that her
cousin loved her at the last as he had loved her at the first; but that
she should never have heard another word of his attachment from his
living lips; that he knew he was not good enough for her, his queen; and
that no thought of earning her love by his devotion had prompted his
return to France, only that, if possible, he might have the great
privilege of serving her whom he loved. And then he went off into
rambling talk about petit-maitres, and such kind of expressions, said
Jacques to Flechier, the intendant, little knowing what a clue that one
word gave to much of the poor lad's suffering.

"The summer morning came slowly on in that dark prison, and when Jacques
could look round--his master was now sleeping on his shoulder, still the
uneasy, starting sleep of fever--he saw that there were many women among
the prisoners. (I have heard some of those who have escaped from the
prisons say, that the look of despair and agony that came into the faces
of the prisoners on first wakening, as the sense of their situation grew
upon them, was what lasted the longest in the memory of the survivors.
This look, they said, passed away from the women's faces sooner than it
did from those of the men.)

"Poor old Jacques kept falling asleep, and plucking himself up again for
fear lest, if he did not attend to his master, some harm might come to
the swollen, helpless arm. Yet his weariness grew upon him in spite of
all his efforts, and at