"There is no such feeling on my part, I can assure you. There need be no question between us as to the part you have taken. I am sorry, but it is no concern of mine, and after living in the same house for a year or so, and having faced death side by side at Champigny, no difference of political opinion should interfere with our friendship. Besides, you know," he added with a laugh, "I may want to get you to exert your influence on my behalf. Events are thickening. In troubled times it is always well to have a friend at court, and if I come to be treated as a suspect, I shall refer to you for a character as a peaceable and well-intentioned student of art." "There is no fear of anything of that sort, Hartington; but should you, by any possibility, get into trouble, you have but to send to me. However, this state of things will not last long, the people are fairly roused now and will soon sweep the butchers of Versailles before them, and a reign of perfect freedom and equality will be established, and the world will witness the spectacle of a free country, purging itself from the tyranny of capital and the abuse of power, under which it has so long groaned. But I have much to do and must be off," and with a hasty shake of the hand he hurried away again. Cuthbert looked after him. "The poor fellow is fast qualifying for a mad-house," he said; "he has changed sadly, his cheeks are hollow and his eyes unnaturally brilliant. Those patches of color on his cheeks are signs of fever rather than of health. That woman, Minette, is responsible for this ruin. It must end badly one way or the other; the best thing that could happen to him would be to fall in one of these sorties. He has made himself so conspicuous that he is almost certain to be shot when the troops take Paris, unless, indeed, he becomes an actual lunatic before that. Wound up as he is by excitement and enthusiasm he will never bring himself to sneak off in disguise, as most of the men who have stirred up this business will do." The time passed quickly enough in Paris, events followed each other rapidly, there was scarce a day without fighting, more or less serious. Gradually the troops wrested position after position from the Communists, but not without heavy fighting. The army at Versailles had swelled so rapidly by the arrival of the prisoners from Germany that even in Paris, where the journals of the Commune endeavored to keep up the spirits of the defenders by wholesale lying as to the result of the fighting outside its walls. It was known that at least a hundred thousand men were now gathered at Versailles.