"There is a young painter," continued the Deputy, "Hauer, by name. He has been sketching her in the court-house; yes, and speaking to her as well. He had better be careful," he added threateningly. "I have my eye on him; and so has the Committee of Public Safety." Chabot was standing by the window; he picked up one of the garments lying folded there on the shelf, examined it for a moment, and threw it down again in disdain. "Yes, this Citizen Hauer is a fool. Like you," he turned to Richard, "and your little Jean, and the rest. His head has been turned by the woman's looks. He will lose it altogether if he is not careful." To so simple a mind as that of the old warder, the Deputy's fierce and bitter hatred toward his prisoner seemed difficult to understand until he remembered certain stories connected with her arrest, stories in which his visitor had played an important, if not a very edifying part. In early life Chabot had been a member of the priesthood, but renounced his vows in order to enter the sphere of politics. After the murder of Marat, when Charlotte Corday had been conveyed to the Abbaye prison, Chabot was among those who had helped to search her, a task in which his zeal had so far outrun his discretion as to induce him to retain a watch which he found upon the prisoner's person, until she somewhat sarcastically reminded him of his early and apparently forgotten vows of priestly poverty. It was Chabot, too, who, suspecting Charlotte of having important papers concealed about her, had profited by the fact of her hands being tied to search for them. The wretched girl, supposing him to be bent upon some fresh outrage, sprang away with so violent a gesture, in her efforts to elude his touch, that the front of her dress burst open. With a natural and spontaneous movement of shame, she turned quickly away and stood with her face to the wall, begging to be allowed to rearrange her dress. So genuine was her emotion, and so strongly did her innocent modesty appeal to her jailors, that the request was immediately granted, and she was even permitted to draw down and arrange her sleeves in such a manner as to interpose them between her wrists and the cords that bound her none too tenderly. Richard recalled those incidents, which had been related to him by Lafondée, the dentist, who lived opposite Marat's house, and who had been one of the first to rush to the scene of the murder; and he smiled knowingly to himself as he looked across the narrow space at the passionate, revengeful face of the ex-priest. He was about to formulate some further arguments in defence of his little protégée, when a movement at the threshold of the cell attracted his attention, and in another moment the object of his thoughts stood framed in the open doorway.