“Ah, mademoiselle! What are two rows of teeth against a hundred. Send her away, I implore you, and accept my escort out of this danger.” “My faith!” she said at last, in a queer little moving voice, “it may be as the citizen says; but I think dogs are safer than men.” I urged my prayer. The beauty and courage of the child filled my heart with a sort of rapturous despair. “God witness I am speaking for your safety alone! Will this prevail with you? I am the Comte de la Muette. I exchange you that confidence for a little that you may place in me. I lay my life in your hands, and I beg the charge of yours in return.” I could hear her breathing deep where she stood. Suddenly she bent and spoke to her companion. “To the secret place, Radegonde--and to-morrow again for thy _confiture_, thou bad glutton. Kiss thy Nanette, my baby; and, oh, Radegonde! not what falls from the table of Sainte Guillotine!” She stood erect, and held up a solemn finger. The hound slunk away, like a human thing ashamed; showed her teeth at me as she passed, and disappeared in the shadows of the scaffold. I took a hurried step forward. Near at hand the pure loveliness of this citoyenne was, against its surroundings, like a flower floating on blood. She smiled, and looked me earnestly in the face. We were but phantoms to one another in that moony twilight; but in those fearful times men had learned to adapt their eyesight to the second plague of darkness. “Is it true?” she said, softly. “Monsieur le Comte, it must be long since you have received a curtsey.” She dropped me one there, bending to her own prettiness like a rose; and then she gave a little low laugh. Truly that city of Paris saw some strange meetings in the year of terror. “I, too,” she said, “was born of the _noblesse_. That is a secret, monsieur, to set against yours.” I could but answer, with some concern-- “Mademoiselle, these confessions, if meet for the holy saint yonder, are little for the ears of the devil’s advocates. I entreat let us be walking, or those in the ditch may anticipate upon us his benediction.” “_Ma foi!_” she said, “it is true. Come, then!” We went off together, stealing from the square like thieves. Presently, when I could breathe with a half relief, “You will not go to-morrow?” I said. “To feed Radegonde! Ah, monsieur! I would not for the whole world lose the little sweet-tooth her goodies. Each of us has only the other to love in all this cruel city.” “So, my child! And they have taken the rest?” “Monsieur, my father was the rest. He went on the seventeenth Fructidor; and since, my veins do not run blood, I think, but only ice-water, that melts from my heart and returns to freeze again.” I sighed. “Nay,” she said, “for I can laugh, as you see.” “And the dog, my poor child?”