The woman and Bertie regarded each other significantly, though neither could speak from emotion, while De Chevagny addressed the latter, saying: "See! there is the table where nightly she sits and works, making little things for the child that is to come--the babe that shall make us so happy. Here," and he put his finger on a gilt nail by the chimney-piece, "where she hangs her workbasket at night; here," and he pointed to a low stool, "where I sit by her side and tell her all I have done at the court." He broke off, and appeared to be listening. "Hark!" he said, "hark! It is striking eleven--we are going to bed--the great _cloche_ is ringing; there is a noise in the courtyard. God!" he screamed, "it is full of torches; the exempts are there; they have come to seize me--to drag me to the Bastille--to part us! Hide! oh, hide me!" "Courage, courage, dear friend," said Bertie, soothingly, as he held him in his arms, and noticed once again how heavy and inert his poor form was--"courage, courage! They will never come for you again. You are free forever now. Dispel these illusions. Be brave." "Free," he repeated, "free!" and his wandering blue eyes sought Bertie's once more, while in them there was again that wistful look which so wrung his heart. "Free! yes, I am free!" and as he spoke he released himself from Elphinston's grasp and flung himself upon his knees before his wife's picture. "My darling," he murmured, gazing up at it, "_ma mignonne_, we shall never part more. I am free! free! free! And so happy! oh, so happy!" and he clasped his hands together and bent over the low chair before the picture. And once again he looked up and murmured, "So--so happy now!" When at last they ventured to speak to him, and, getting no answer, to raise his head, they saw upon his face so sweet and placid a smile that, remembering all, Bertie would not have wished to call him back to the world in which he had suffered so much. CHAPTER XXXI. "AN OUTSTAYED WELCOME." It was the night of Monday, the 10th of December, 1748, and once again all Paris lay under the snow--snow that hung in great masses over the eaves of the houses, threatening, when the next thaw should come, to fall and envelop the passers-by; that was caked and hardened on the _chaussées_ of all the streets by the recent hard frost; that, out on the quays, was of the consistency of iron almost from the same cause; while, so severe had that frost been, that on the river the snow had been frozen into huge solid blocks, which swirled round and round in vast masses as, under the stars, they floated slowly down towards the open country and the sea.