The stranger raised his head, looked gloomily on the nuns, and made no answer. Chilled by his cold reception of their kind greeting, they did not venture to utter another word. He seemed to have frozen at their hearts, in an instant, all the gratitude, all the friendly aspirations of the long year that had passed. They now perceived but too plainly that their visitor desired to remain a complete stranger to them, and that they must resign all hope of ever making a friend of him. The old priest fancied he had detected a smile on the lips of their guest when he entered, but that smile--if it had really appeared--vanished again the moment he observed the preparations which had been made for his reception. He knelt to hear the funeral mass, prayed fervently as before, and then abruptly took his departure; briefly declining, by a few civil words, to partake of the simple refreshment offered to him, on the expiration of the service, by the two nuns. Day after day wore on, and nothing more was heard of the stranger by the inhabitants of the garret. After the fall of Robespierre, the church was delivered from all actual persecution, and the priest and the nuns were free to appear publicly in Paris, without the slightest risk of danger. One of the first expeditions undertaken by the aged ecclesiastic led him to a perfumer's shop, kept by a man who had formerly been one of the Court tradesmen, and who had always remained faithful to the Royal Family. The priest, clothed once more in his clerical dress, was standing at the shop door talking to the perfumer, when he observed a great crowd rapidly advancing along the street. "What is the matter yonder?" he inquired of the shopkeeper. "Nothing," replied the man carelessly, "but the cart with the condemned criminals going to the place of execution. Nobody pities them--and nobody ought!" "You are not speaking like a Christian," exclaimed the priest. "Why not pity them?" "Because," answered the perfumer, "those men who are going to the execution are the last accomplices of Robespierre. They only travel the same fatal road which their innocent victims took before them." The cart with the prisoners condemned to the guillotine had by this time arrived opposite the perfumer's shop. As the old priest looked curiously toward the state criminals, he saw, standing erect and undaunted among his drooping fellow prisoners, the very man at whose desire he had twice celebrated the funeral service for the martyred King of France! "Who is that standing upright in the cart?" cried the priest, breathlessly. The perfumer looked in the direction indicated, and answered-- "THE EXECUTIONER OF LOUIS THE SIXTEENTH!" PERSONAL HABITS AND APPEARANCE OF ROBESPIERRE.