‘This “shrift” is beyond endurance. Away, holy father!’ cried Gougon, as he pushed me rudely back, and seized the marquise by the wrist. A faint cry escaped her. I heard no more; for, jostled and pushed about by the crowd, I was driven to the very rails of the scaffold. Stepping beneath these, I mingled with the mob beneath; and burning with eagerness to escape a scene, to have witnessed which would almost have made my heart break, I forced my way into the dense mass, and, by squeezing and creeping, succeeded at last in penetrating to the verge of the Place. A terrible shout, and a rocking motion of the mob, like the heavy surging of the sea, told me that all was over; but I never looked back to the fatal spot, but, having gained the open streets, ran at the top of my speed towards home. CHAPTER II. THE RESTAURANT ‘AU SCELERAT’ As I gained the street, at a distance from the Place, I was able to increase my speed; and I did so with an eagerness as if the world depended on my haste. At any other time I would have bethought me of my disobedience to the père’s commands, and looked forward to meeting him with shame and sorrow, but now I felt a kind of importance in the charge intrusted to me. I regarded my mission as something superior to any petty consideration of self, while the very proximity in which I had stood to peril and death made me seem a hero in my own eyes. At last I reached the street where we lived, and, almost breathless with exertion, gained the door. What was my amazement, however, to find it guarded by a sentry, a large, solemn-looking fellow, with a tattered cocked-hat on his head, and a pair of worn striped trousers on his legs, who cried out, as I appeared, ‘Halte-là!’ in a voice that at once arrested my steps. ‘Where to, youngster?’ said he, in a somewhat melted tone, seeing the shock his first words had caused me. ‘I am going home, sir,’ said I submissively; ‘I live at the third storey, in the apartment of the Père Michel.’ ‘The Père Michel will live there no longer, my boy; his apartment is now in the Temple,’ said he slowly. ‘In the Temple!’ said I, whose memory at once recalled my father’s fate; and then, unable to control my feelings, I sat down upon the steps and burst into tears. ‘There, there, child, you must not cry thus,’ said he; ‘these are not days when one should weep over misfortunes; they come too fast and too thick on all of us for that. The père was your tutor, I suppose?’ I nodded. ‘And your father--where is he?’ ‘Dead.’ He made a sign to imitate the guillotine, and I assented by another nod. ‘Was he a Royalist, boy?’ ‘He was an officer in the Garde du Corps,’ said I proudly. The soldier shook his head mournfully, but with what meaning I know not. ‘And your mother, boy?’ ‘I do not know where she is,’ said I, again relapsing into tears at the thought of my utter desolation. The old soldier leaned upon his musket in profound thought, and for some time did not utter a word. At last he said--