That evening, as she passed in front of the Prêtre Pendu, she encountered Cramoisin, who watched her from the corners of his eyes, rubbing his splayed thumb over his lip in such an ironical fashion that she stopped and demanded impatiently: "Well, what is it? I seem to amuse you." "Eh, perhaps you do." "Come, what do you mean by such looks!" Then rising, he looked her a moment in countenance, and replied: "Nicole, they told me you were clever." "Well, what does that mean?" "It means that you are either very stupid," he said curtly, "or very blind." Nicole mounted the steps in perplexity, arresting her journey at every landing to ask herself anxiously what he could have meant. In her room she remained blankly at the window, forgetting the meal she had to prepare. Several times she passed her hand across her forehead, as though to rout the unquiet thoughts, but always returned to the same reverie. The church bell ringing five aroused her, and, ashamed to have yielded to such doubts, she said angrily: "Come, I'm an idiot! I'll tell the whole affair to Barabant when he returns and we will laugh at it together." Yet when he entered, her resolution forgotten, she rose quickly, and taking him by the arms, looked anxiously in his face. "What is the matter with you?" he asked. "Why do you look at me so curiously?" "I was afraid you would do something rash," she said evasively. "What--what of the Girondins?" "It is hopeless. To-morrow they may be condemned." But only half satisfied, he returned to the question. "Was that all you wanted to know? You looked at me very queerly." "I don't doubt it," she said quickly. "Ah, Barabant, I am so afraid that you will compromise yourself with them." "I must decide--and you would not have me a coward, Nicole?" She defended her position, she repeated the old arguments, she tried to win him from the thought of sacrifice; but of what had happened during the day she said not a word. "It is getting late," she exclaimed finally. "I must get into line." "Let me take the whole night," he pleaded; "you are tired." "No, no. Not at all." She hurried below, furious at herself for having betrayed to him her unrest, but when she remembered how instantly he had noticed the strangeness of her look, she could not help thinking that a little suspicious. The next morning she prepared to meet the concierge with a new defiance, but la Mère Corniche did not even raise her head. Cramoisin, to her relief, was absent; only Boudgoust and Jambony were lounging in front of the cabaret. She cast a furtive glance in their direction; they were laughing boisterously. "They are laughing at me," she thought, all her doubts returning. She passed a miserable morning, tortured by the fears that now seemed always to have been with her. Unable to bear the tumult within her breast, she determined to recount all to Barabant. If anything existed, she must know it definitely.