As she stood in hesitating bewilderment, she was aware of the sound of approaching wheels, and looking up she saw three carriages coming, one behind the other, at a brisk pace. There were three priests in the first, one of them so old that all the solicitous assistance of the two younger men was required to get him safely down the high step and through the gate. In the second were two ladies, whose faces seemed vaguely familiar. Was it a year or only an hour ago that they had laughed and jested at Mme de Montargis’ brilliant gathering? They looked at her in the same half uncomprehending manner, and passed on. The last carriage bore the De Maillé crest, but a National Guard occupied the box-seat in place of the magnificent coachman Aline had seen the day before, when Mme de Maillé had taken her old friend’s daughter for a drive through Paris. The door of the chariot opened, and Mme De Maillé, pale, almost fainting, was helped out. She looked neither to right nor left, and when Aline started forward and would have spoken, the National Guard pushed her roughly back. "Go home, go home!" he said, not unkindly; "if you are not arrested, thank the saints for it, for there are precious few aristocrats as lucky to-day"; and Aline shrank against the wall, dumb with perturbation and dismay. As in a dream she listened to the clang of the prison gate, the roll of departing wheels, and it was only when the last echo died away that the mist which hung about her seemed to clear, and she realised that she was alone in the deserted street. Alone! In all her nineteen years she had never been really alone before. As a child in her father’s château, as a girl in her aristocratic convent, she had always been guarded, sheltered, guided, watched. She had certainly never walked a yard in the open street, or been touched by a man’s hand, as the Commissioner Lenoir had touched her a few minutes since. She felt her shoulder burn through the thin muslin fichu that veiled it so discreetly, and the blood ran up, under her delicate skin, to the roots of the curling hair, where gold tints showed here and there through the lightly sprinkled powder. It was still very hot, though so late in the afternoon, and the sun, though near its setting, shot out a level ray or two that seemed to make palpable the strong, brooding heat of the evening.