"Try her!" he exclaimed, disengaging himself from my grasp. How is that to be done?"

Oh, easily. Parbleu! it will be such a famous preparation for the journey! Now, you can help me in this."

Fool that I was! I might have seen in the sudden introversion of his eyes, so well remembered afterwards, what that man's soul was made of. They drew back, as it were, deep beneath his brows, and glowed with a flickering suspicious gleam, which he could neither control nor conceal.

All this I laid at the instant to a distrust of his own powers of assisting me, or, at most, to a momentary unwillingness to implicate himself in any new difficulty or adventure. I gave him time to recover,-and lost for ever the golden opportunity of unmasking him.

"Yes! you can help me. The postern towards the gardens will be opened this night at twelve o'clock by an unknown agent. An outer gate will likewise be unguarded. We have the password. Disguises and places of concealment are prepared. A guide awaits us. I have till midnight to put Alphonsine to the proof. If I let that hour pass, I shall never know her -never, Levasseur. Her heart I feel

to be my own. Look at me, Levasseur. You know we need not put her affection to the test: but she may not be proof against terror. Muffle yourself in a disguise; touch her on the shoulder, Levasseur, as she passes to her cell; say she must come to the Conciergerie; that if she utters an exclamation or arouses her friends, all must accompany her; that she must, therefore, be silent, and acquiesce. Then tell her that her only chance of evading the horrible fate yawning before her, is by revealing what she knows concerning me what are my sentiments on public affairs-what intrigues I am a party to, and, generally, what secrets I have to divulge. Let this go on, until her inmost heart is probed; and then, and not till then, release her. The trial will be a sharp and terrible one, but it will be final and complete."

Levasseur hesitated, meditated,-and undertook the task. As for me, I felt a wild elation, agonising as if my own trial had been at hand, and compounded of I know not what of distrust, excitement, alarm, recklessness, passion,

and revenge. Utter confusion was in my breast.

The scene was fixed for eleven o'clock, after the turnkeys had gone their rounds, and when the galleries were deserted. Young man, I had my own plan within the other. Do not suppose I believed that I should have satisfied myself by leaving the trial in Levasseur's hands. No; I had not informed him of the interior secret, which was, that I should be myself a concealed witness of the seizure and examination of Alphonsine.

In the shadow of an arched niche some of the prisoners had set up a crucifix of overgrown proportions, before which, in passing to and from their cells, they might stop to offer a hurried prayer. Behind this crucifix the darkness was complete, and as it was close to the place arranged for the arrest, I ensconced myself there. The only ray, indeed, which reached the spot, struggled from a coarse lamp, hung at a considerable distance in an angle, where it was contrived to throw its feeble light down two diverging galleries. As the moment approached, I trembled all over; the joints of my knees refused their office, my trepidation being increased by the apprehension that my very nervousness might betray my concealment, and frustrate my scheme. Listening for every sound, I heard at a distance the rumbling of the fatal cart, usually arriving at this unobserved hour from the Conciergerie for those wretches who were next to undergo examination before the revolutionary tribunal. Presently it came into the yard, and stopped; and then my ear, rendered acute by the silence and the morbid disturbance of my nerves, became conscious of sounds from distant cells, mumbled whispers of plotting fellowprisoners, agonised ejaculations of solitary prayer, the moaning hum of disturbed sleep; nay, I even fancied I could catch ever and anon the more remote clank of a chain, as some unhappy wretch in the vaults beneath the palace turned himself round in the darkness. From without, there came to my ear now and then, as if borne upon a breeze, the hushed thunder of the great city, like the premonitory voices of a volcano, whose long inactivity is about to have its term at last. By-and-bye, an owl blundered against the stone-work of the window at the end of the passage, and startled

me. I had scarcely recovered from this, when I heard a stealthy step approach, and, a little further removed, a light but firm foot-fall following in the same direction.

The stealthy step drew near, stopped close to me, and I could see the outlines of a figure cloaking itself. Scarcely had it time to draw aside when the other came up; and the first, which I had no difficulty in recognising as Levasseur's, suddenly emerged into the middle of the passage, and confronted the advancing figure. A faint shriek issued from the lips of Alphonsine-for it was she; but she immediately recovered herself, and demanded with firmness who barred her passage.

"One," said Levasseur, disguising his voice with considerable skill," who has your life and death in his hands. Follow me."

"Not unless forced to do so," said Alphonsine, in a low, agitated whisper. "I know you not-and am passing to my cell."

"But I know you; and am come to offer you better lodgings-at the Conciergerie. Come, citoyenne, we allow of no leave-takings, and you will not want many changes of raiment. Come along with me, and quietly-do you hear? The quieter the better, for others as well as yourself."

come

"Oh, my God! must I go-alone?" "Certainly not, mademoiselle. You can have all your friends along with you. You have only to rouse them up by uproar, a struggle, shrieks, or the like, to place me under the disagreeable necessity of forming a gang of the whole family party, and taking you off together in the tumbril which is waiting for us down below in the court."

"Hush! I'm silent. Don't breathe a word. If I must go, God's will be done. One prayer before this crucifix, and I am ready."

"What? And you make so little of it! Do you know whither I am to conduct you?"

"I know it well. To ignominy, torture, and death. Alone, unfriended, and unheard of, shall the unhappy Alphonsine endure the most terrible of fates. To endure it she will be torn from all that her life holds dear, from those for whom she would suffer a thousand deaths. I know it well. But breathe not a word: they sleep

sound. I will make my prayer with silent lips-then let me depart."

So saying, she was about to throw herself down at the foot of the cross behind which I stood, when Levasseur, casting off his disguise, seized her in his arms, and exclaimed, in a voice hoarse with suppressed emotion—

"No, Alphonsine; not for this am I come. Let the divinity of reason within your own heart be favourable, and plead for me. I have much to reveal — of myself, of others. Listen to me, who can speak and answer; and turn from that image, before which you might pour forth your supplications for ever without response or succour. Who, think you, has sent me here, to accost and confront you in this lonely cloister? You dare not answer, though I understand your misgivings. The loved, trusted, faultless De Martigny!"

A faint exclamation burst from the lips of the girl as she drew back from his embrace.

66

Ay, De Martigny. He believes you false; he does not understand you--he never understood you. Selfish, even in his predilections, he now seeks to test you in this cruel manner, as much, perhaps, to seek evidence against you, and a plausible excuse for-shall I say?-deserting you

Alphonsine gave signs of faintness, and supported herself against the masonry of the wall. It was too dark for me to see her face, though she was close to me, but I could hear the heart beat.

"Or, perhaps," continued he, relaxing the strain when it appeared too violent, "it is only levity; though methinks it is a cruel game to play. You are going to run away with him this night at least so you think. Perhaps he thinks so, too. Is it to happiness you are going? Just reflect upon this scheme. Suppose it never went farther. Is it for this man-the man who devised all this torture-is he the one for whom you are prepared to risk so much? I see you pause-you reflect. You have need to do so-far greater need than you imagine. Hearken! do you know me? Have you ever heard for what crime I was thrust in here, or why I have not followed Vergniaud, Madame Roland, and the rest to the guillotine? Ask FouquierTinville who I am. Put the same question to Danton to Robespierre. Dost thou suppose the rulers of the destinies of France are not represented within these walls? or only represented

by gaolers and turnkeys? I have thy life-your lives-in my hand. A turn this way, and you are safe-a turn the other, and you are under the bloody axe. He has betrayed you be mine!" "Yours?" feebly ejaculated Alphonsine, scarcely able to stand, or utter the word.

Reassure yourself.

"Yes-mine. Your ridiculous plot I have taken the means of frustrating. It never had a chance of succeeding. Should the attempt be made, and fail, you are all swept to execution. Let it drop. Nothing will happen to your aunt and friends in short, to him. They will remain here as before; and when peace is proclaimed, they will be free. A short time-a very short time-will show you what stuff he is made of. Come with me. You know that long before this fickle fool appeared amongst

us,

I was devoted to you. I have never ceased to be at your feet. Yes; through the whole humiliation of this hated rival's courtship, never for an instant did I relinquish my claim upon the heart of Alphonsine. Let her now understand constancy-and reward it.” "Reward it, sir?"

Oh, yes, yes, yes! I have earned something; your reason must tell you so. Come then, fairest, dearest Alphonsine! A word from me is our passport beyond these gloomy walls, into safety and happiness."

"Begone!" she exclaimed, in a hollow voice, hoarse with indignation, spurning him from her with a gesture I judged to be a blow.

He staggered back towards the crucifix-and me. I heard, or rather felt, his breast heave with rage.

"Miserable woman!" he muttered; "think you that the supercilious caprice of a court can find here an appropriate field of action? Do you nourish the delusion that heroism, as you may name it, will in these gloomy cloisters preserve the victim an hour from the Barrière du Trone? Humble yourself, woman! not to this stump of idolatry here, but at Levasseur's feet, and implore him not to drag you through the streets by the hair of your head to the guillotine !"

"Villain in this hour of anguish and horror, I tell thee that I despise thee more than I hate the sanguinary gang whose spy thou boasted to be. And here I, Alphonsine de St. Luc, knowing I am to die, yet stand prouder, and purer, and more joyful

at heart before the effigy of my crucified Saviour, as the affianced bride of that Charles de Martigny whom thou falsely malignest, than thy masters ever did at the shrine of the Reason their deeds have outraged, and in the face of a heaven that sickens at the blood they have spilt!"

"Call, then, upon thy God, or upon Charles de Martigny, which thou pleasest, for all other help is in vain."

"Oh, Charles! oh God!" cried Alphonsine, as she sprang forward, with the intention, it was evident, of embracing the crucifix. Levasseur threw himself between it and her,—and at the same instant my hands were round his throat with so deadly a gripe, that he was at once deprived of all power either to utter or to resist. There I held him, paralysed,—and was about to call Alphonsine by name, when the continuing immobility and rigidity of the figure I clutched, shot a sudden conviction into my mind,—and I was silent. Agitation, and darkness, and meditated crime, make a man susceptible of any extravagant impression. Circumstances afterwards gave strong corroboration to the judgment formed at that instant. I was satisfied that Levasseur believed himself to have been seized by the figure on the cross!

Had I addressed Alphonsine, indeed, my words would have fallen upon unhearing ears. She had dropped sense

less to the floor.

I now ventured to glance round at Levasseur's face. There was light enough to show that it was swollen, livid. The eyeballs stared and were bloodshot; the tongue protruded; blood trickled from the nose. I had no weapon, but I raised him up by main strength, without relaxing my grasp, and dashed him upon the stone floor at the foot of the crucifix; and where I cast him he lay, irredeemable now—in my fury I exulted to think-even by Him whose emblem hung above him. I then took the fainting form of Alphonsine in my arms, and bore it to Madame de St. Luc's cell. We escaped. Why need I dwell on these things? Paris, the faubourgs, the villages, floated off behind us, like a misty and lamp-lit dream. We scarcely knew more than that the breath of heaven fanned our burning temples. If at times a recollection of what we had left came upon the horizon of our imaginations like a spec

But when daylight appeared this had to be relinquished, and then the fields and the farm-houses afforded us tracks and a shelter. The simplest things, emblems of the country and of freedom, drew tears from our eyes. Our feelings had all been intensified in proportion to the paucity of objects we had to exercise them upon; and now the sight of a peasant driving his team in the fallow, a milk-maid returning home with her pail; nay, even the kine ruminating in the pasture, the very trees and grass waving in the breeze, kindled irrepres sible emotions within our hearts. On the way I made full confession to the heroic creature of my cruel suspicions, of my employment of Levasseur, of my own counter-plan-of all that to her was still inexplicable. I made no attempt at extenuation. I could only confess myself utterly unworthy of her, and acknowledge that my bitterest punishment was to learn how faultless was the object I had presumed to suspect of a taint of earthly corruption. She wept as I recounted these things, received my explanations with a hea venly tenderness, smiled sadly at my doubts, and forgave me. We were too new to life, and too uncertain of its lasting, to waste time upon anything but the great love that possessed us.

We had to trust ourselves to numerous individuals. It was a slender chance our reaching Tours unbetrayed. Terror reigned around; and when occasionally we were constrained to ask for shelter in some remote and humble homestead, even where it was afforded, paleness and trembling seized upon the inmates, and we were dismissed with furtive haste, leaving dread and disquiet behind us, as if a crime had been committed upon the premises.

Besides, I could not help experiencing a sort of boding apprehension, coupling itself with the revelations of the wretch Levasseur. Suppose him dead, had his agents already received instructions to act, and were we to be the victims of posthumous malignity? It was plain that he had had his reason for not having us swept away in the

usual course to the Conciergerie. Perhaps he judged that he should have a freer stage for the accomplishment of his iniquitous designs outside the prison walls. It was easy to understand his hints as to seeing us soon again. Now the question arose, on the supposition that he was dead, should we change our course at once? I did not hesitate to decide against doing so. We had a plan laid, the only one which afforded rational grounds of hope, but which might have been thwarted by the machinations of a traitor. He being dead, we had so much the better chance of success, since under no circumstances could his emissaries act without communicating with him—these not being times for men to compromise themselves without the warrant of influential instigators. But suppose him alive-I would not allow myself to speculate upon this alternative at all. The thing, I insisted, was impossible. Nevertheless, prudence constrained us so far to deviate from our plan, as to make Tours only a first halting place, with the design of penetrating at once farther into the west, where we should be more out of the reach of pursuit.

We arrived here safely: the Archbishop had made his plans previously, and contrived maters so, that a passage leading from the palace underground was open for us; and the secret oratory which existed in the spot where we now stand, received the wearied party of fugitives on the night of their arrival. Then for the first time since our departure from the prison were we able to collect our thoughts, and devise means for our ultimate safety.

Our plans were as follows. We were to remain where we were for the night, and the next day the Archbishop and I, after ascertaining as well as we could the state of public feeling in Tours, were to proceed down the river to the retired hamlet of Luynes, and there engage one of the flat-bottomed boats that ply on the river, which was to be ready for us-that is, for Alphonsine, her aunt, and myself-to embark on the same night, and follow the current of the Loire in the direction of La Vendée, where we believed we should find friends, and were likely to obtain an asylum. But before we set out upon our voyage, the exemplary prelate, who had thus far been our guide, protector, and friend, was to perform for us a last service, and within this apartment unite my adored

Alphonsine and me in the holy bond of wedlock.

Look about you, young man. Does this look like an asylum of refuge-a bridal chamber? Behold these gigantic blocks, dislocated as if by an arm still more gigantic, and ask yourself whether an ordinary frenzy, even of destruction, could have wrought the ruin you see!

The next morning arose, serene and bright. As Alphonsine and I ascended from the apartments beneath into the secluded gardens of the Archeveché, and for the first time looked upon the enchantment of heaven and earth in freedom and together, we felt our souls overpowered, and stood long in speechlessness under the open sky, unable to do more than silently inhale an atmosphere of happiness almost too rare for our subdued spirits. I then turned towards Alphonsine, and perceived the tears coursing down her marble cheeks.

"Oh! my well-beloved," cried I; "give this day at least to smiles, and let the current of our destiny, if it must form to itself a channel of tears, flow round the tranquil island of this present happiness, even though it meet to-morrow, to unite the past and the future in one stream of sorrow!"

I could not adopt another tone, though I felt how impossible it was for such language to establish confidence within her breast. We had gone through too much our fortunes had been of too eventful and too terrible a cast, to make the idea of security anything but a mockery. It was better to be true than to be cheerful, and in a minute my tears mixed with hers.

"In a few days, perhaps, Alphonsine, we may feel that there is a life before us. I admit that as yet we cannot reckon upon an hour."

"Yes, Charles, until then we have only to hope the best, and be prepared for the worst. Your gift is yet upon my bosom"-here she showed me the golden guillotine suspended from her neck. "As long as I wear this I am reminded that I belong half to death, half to life. Only when we are safe will I remove it from its present place, and preserve it as a relic of dangers -and pleasures-that are past."

So saying, she replaced it in the folds of her dress next her heart, and a smile, the last I ever saw her wear, dawned upon her pallid countenance. If I imprinted a kiss upon those lips,

and drew that form to my breast, it was with so largely mingled a sense of foreboding, and so evasive and unrealised a throb of joy, that it became a question with me in after years, whether the bliss of that instant did not belong to the domain of dreams, and deserve a place among the other aspirations after which a heart destined to misfortune feebly flutters out of the shadow of a doom it cannot escape.

The first buds of spring tipped the fruit-trees of the garden. An hundred birds sported from branch to branch, and the frosty dew of the morning yet bung upon the early flowers. We could not but feel all this. These simple things, of all other things, went most to our hearts. We fell upon our knees, and prayed there under the open sky.

And there I quitted her. Oh, God! can I go on? The Archbishop and I found the town in a state of fierce excitement. Recent arrivals from Paris had still further inflamed the revolutionary zeal of the inhabitants, whose vicinity to the seat of the Vendean war had rendered them from the first ardent partisans of the Montagne. Riotous parties paraded the streets, armed with weapons, carrying firebrands, and shouting their wild carmagnoles, and all business was suspended. It was with difficulty, even under the favour of our disguise, that we evaded these bands, and made our way across the bridge, to the right bank, towards St. Cyr and Luynes. At last, however, we reached the hamlet; and my companion's former knowledge of the inhabitants enabled us to bribe an old boatman, whom he remembered to have been less imbued with the new ideas than his neighbours, to drop the party down during the night below Saumur, where we could put ourselves at once in communication with certain Seigneurs of the Bocage, in whom we knew we should find staunch friends. Having settled this matter to our satisfaction, we turned our steps towards Tours again, my heart in a glow of anticipation, and even the good Archbishop elated with the near prospect of our speedy deliverance. For himself, he refused to accompany us. He trusted to some faithful friends, and a knowledge of the hiding-places about his own palace, and preferred awaiting a turn of affairs, which it was his fixed opinion would speedily arrive.

It was evening before we drew near