Promise me that when you see her shrinking before the terrors of death to-night, you will have self-restraint enough to abstain from breathing a word of hope to her. I ask this, because there are ten--twenty--fifty chances to one that there is no hope."
"I have no choice but to promise," answered Trudaine.
Lomaque produced his pocket-book and pencil before he spoke again.
"I will enter into particulars as soon as I have asked a strange question of you," he said. "You have been a great experimenter in chemistry in your time--is your mind calm enough, at such a trying moment as this, to answer a question which is connected with chemistry in a very humble way? You seem astonished. Let me put the question at once. Is there any liquid or powder, or combination of more than one ingredient known, which will remove writing from paper, and leave no stain behind?"
"Certainly! But is that all the question? Is there no greater difficulty?"
"None. Write the prescription, whatever it may be, on that leaf," said the other, giving him the pocket-book. "Write it down, with plain directions for use." Trudaine obeyed. "This is the first step," continued Lomaque, putting the book in his pocket, "toward the accomplishment of my purpose--my uncertain purpose, remember! Now, listen; I am going to put my own head in danger for the chance of saving yours and your sister's by tampering with the death-list. Don't interrupt me! If I can save one, I can save the other. Not a word about gratitude! Wait till you know the extent of your obligation. I tell you plainly, at the outset, there is a motive of despair, as well as a motive of pity, at the bottom of the action in which I am now about to engage. Silence! I insist on it. Our time is short; it is for me to speak, and for you to listen. The president of the tribunal has put the deathmark against your names on the prison list of today. That list, when the trials are over and it is marked to the end, will be called in this room before you are taken to St. Lazare. It will then be sent to Robespierre, who will keep it, having a copy made of it the moment it is delivered, for circulation among his colleagues--St. Just, and the rest. It is my business to make a duplicate of this copy in the first instance. The duplicate will be compared with the original, and possibly with the copy, too, either by Robespierre himself, or by some one in whom he can place implicit trust, and will then be sent to St. Lazare without passing through my hands again. It will be read in public the moment it is received, at the grating of the prison, and will afterward be kept by the jailer, who will refer to it, as he goes round in the evening with a piece of chalk, to mark the cell doors of the prisoners destined for the guillotine to-morrow. That duty happens, to-day, to fall to the hunchback whom you saw speaking to me. He is a confirmed drinker, and I mean to tempt him with such wine as he rarely tastes. If--after the reading of the list in public, and before the marking of the cell doors--I can get him to sit down to the bottle, I will answer for making him drunk, for getting the list out of his pocket, and for wiping your names out of it with the prescription you have just written for me. I shall write all the names, one under another, just irregularly enough in my duplicate to prevent the interval left by the erasure from being easily observed. If I succeed in this, your door will not be marked, and your names will not be called tomorrow morning when the tumbrils come for the guillotine. In the present confusion of prisoners pouring in every day for trial, and prisoners pouring out every day for execution, you will have the best possible chance of security against awkward inquiries, if you play your cards properly, for a good fortnight or ten days at least. In that time--"
"Well! well!" cried Trudaine, eagerly.
Lomaque looked toward the tribunal door, and lowered his voice to a fainter whisper before he continued, "In that time Robespierre's own head may fall into the sack! France is beginning to sicken under the Reign of Terror. Frenchmen of the Moderate faction, who have lain hidden for months in cellars and lofts, are beginning to steal out and deliberate by twos and threes together, under cover of the night. Robespierre has not ventured for weeks past to face the Convention Committee. He only speaks among his own friends at the Jacobins. There are rumors of a terrible discovery made by Carnot, of a desperate resolution taken by Tallien. Men watching behind the scenes see that the last days of the Terror are at hand. If Robespierre is beaten in the approaching struggle, you are saved--for the new reign must be a Reign of Mercy. If he conquers, I have only put off the date of your death and your sister's, and have laid my own neck under the axe. Those are your chances--this is all I can do."
He paused, and Trudaine again endeavored to speak such words as might show that he was not unworthy of the deadly risk which Lomaque was prepared to encounter. But once more the chief agent peremptorily and irritably interposed:
"I tell you, for the third time," he said, "I will listen to no expressions of gratitude from you till I know when I deserve them. It is true that I recollect your father's timely kindness to me--true that I have not forgotten what passed, five years since at your house by the river-side. I remember everything, down to what you would consider the veriest trifle--that cup of coffee, for instance, which your sister kept hot for me. I told you then that you would think better of me some day. I know that you do now. But this is not all. You want to glorify me to my face for risking my life for you. I won't hear you, because my risk is of the paltriest kind. I am weary of my life. I can't look back to it with pleasure. I am too old to look forward to what is left of it with hope. There was something in that night at your house before the wedding--something in what you said, in what your sister did--which altered me. I have had my days of gloom and self-reproach, from time to time, since then. I have sickened at my slavery, and subjection, and duplicity, and cringing, first under one master then under another. I have longed to look back at my life, and comfort myself with the sight of some good action, just as a frugal man comforts himself with the sight of his little savings laid by in an old drawer. I can't do this, and I want to do it. The want takes me like a fit, at uncertain intervals--suddenly, under the most incomprehensible influences. A glance up at the blue sky--starlight over the houses of this great city, when I look out at the night from my garret window--a child's voice coming suddenly, I don't know where from--the piping of my neighbor's linnet in his little cage--now one trifling thing, now another--wakes up that want in me in a moment. Rascal as I am, those few simple words your sister spoke to the judge went through and through me like a knife. Strange, in a man like me, isn't it? I am amazed at it myself.