Madame du Barry found several people waiting who had evidently been roused as she had been; they all glanced at her curiously, and some recognised her and all noticed her beauty. On her part she looked for the gipsy-like lady whom she had spoken with last night, but she was not there. From the others Madame du Barry shrank; she thought that their eyes were cold and disdainful. When some seven were gathered and the last door had been relocked, the jailer conducted them downstairs and across the courtyard, the way Madame du Barry had been brought last night. She made a resolve, and kept it, of not looking down when she crossed those foul cobbles, but forced herself to look up at the strip of sky sadly coloured with the winter dawn, that–melancholy and remote as it was–yet seemed kinder and more human than either buildings or people. Then the sombre walls closed round them again. A couple of Republican Guards took charge of the prisoners and conducted them to the large, dark Gothic entrance hall–“la salle des pas perdu.” This was lit by two lanterns and already contained several people besides the soldiers on duty. There was a great silence. Madame du Barry wished to speak, to ask what was going to happen, but could not; she leant against one of the pillars and looked round with frightened eyes. Every one was very quiet; a few whispered together, but in the most hushed of tones. The soldiers paced about heavily; one was eating nuts. Most of the people were poorly dressed and white-faced, as if they had been long in prison, but some were fashionable and neat, and must have been just arrested. One of these, a young man wearing a handsome travelling dress and his hair elaborately curled, approached Madame du Barry. His face was vaguely familiar to her; she thought that she must have seen him at Versailles. “Why did you return to France, Madame?” he asked. The sound of a refined man’s voice was beyond words grateful to her ears; the numb sensation left her brain. She raised her blue eyes and gave him (unconsciously) the sideway glance she had used with such effect at the court of France. “They think it was for my jewels,” she whispered; “but I was in a plot to save the Queen.” He looked at her very kindly, and she was pleased and flattered to a great degree, for she had believed that the aristocracy still despised her, and this man was obviously an aristocrat. “What are they keeping us here for?” she asked. “What is going to happen?” He made no immediate answer, and, looking intently at him, she perceived that his face was slightly distorted–or was it that her vision was distracted and gave this abnormal appearance to others? A soldier passed them, insolently near; when he had gone the young man answered– “They must have told you? You were tried yesterday?” She faintly shook her fair head. “Oh no, you could not call it a trial; they dragged me before some tribunal. A servant denounced me, Monsieur.”