Jean Diantre was sitting with two or three of his mates in his attic over a small brazier of charcoal. They rose in surprise at the entrance of Minette and her father, followed by the American. The girl, without speaking, walked straight up to Jean. "I knew you were a miserable," she said, bitterly, "a drunken, worthless scamp, but until now I did not know you were a murderer. Yes, comrades, this man with whom you sit and smoke is a miserable assassin. Yesterday evening he tried to take the life of Arnold Dampierre here, whom you all know as a friend of freedom and a hater of tyranny. This brave companion of yours had not the courage to meet him face to face, but stole up behind him in the dark, and in another moment would have slain the man he was following, when the tables were turned. The man he had followed was not Arnold Dampierre but another; and before this wretch could strike with his knife, he knocked him down, stunned him, and left him like a dog that he is on the pavement. No doubt he has told you the lie that he told my father, that he fell while going upstairs drunk. It was a blow of the fist that has marked him as you see. The man he had tried to murder did not even care to give him in charge. He despised this cur too much, and yet the fellow may think himself fortunate. Had it been Monsieur Dampierre it would not have been a fist but a bullet through his head that would have punished him. Now mark me, Jean Diantre," and she moved a pace forward, so suddenly that the man started back, "you are a known assassin and poltroon. If at any time harm befalls Monsieur Dampierre I will stab you with my own hand. If you ever dare to speak to me again I will hold you up to the scorn of the women of the quarter. As it is, your comrades have heard how mean and cowardly a scoundrel you are. You had best move from Montmartre at once, for when this is known no honest man will give you his hand, no man who respects himself will work beside you. Hide yourself elsewhere, for if you stay here I will hound you down, I will see that you have not an hour's peace of your life. We reds have our ideas, but we are not assassins. We do not sneak after a man to stab him in the dark, and when we have arms in our hands we are not to be beaten like curs by an unarmed man." The other men had shrunk back from him as she spoke. Jean quailed beneath her torrent of contemptuous words and from the fury in her eyes. There was no doubting the fact that her charges were true. "Who drove me to it?" he said sullenly through his swollen lips.