“_C’est nous qu’on ose méditer de rendre à l’antique esclavage_!” she sang out shrilly; and all the throaty mob took up the chorus, “_Aux armes, citoyens_!” So, reeling and howling, and drifting backwards a black smoke of menace towards the stranger whose name, for any or no particular reason, seemed to be written in the dark book of its _café-chantant_ Hippolyté, the procession passed on its way. The stragglers, who had been drawn by curiosity to the neighbourhood of the interview, dispersed, and the two men were left alone. Vergniaud, with a shrug of his shoulders, looked at Ned, who seemed to be muttering to himself. “A very _précieuse-ridicule_,” murmured the Frenchman. “I would not have you take the little pretty rogue seriously.” Ned seized him by the wrist. “Did you hear her?” he exclaimed in a concentrated agony of voice. Vergniaud nodded his head. “About monsieur le duc’s _protégée_?” he answered uneasily. “How did she know of her--of me?” “_Mon ami_, cannot you tell?” was the compassionate, evasive reply. “Yes,” cried Ned violently, “I can tell. He lied about the letter. The woman told him in it why she had wished to get rid of me, and he lied about it.” “Come,” said Vergniaud, “if it is so, the lie acquitted him, at least, of a cruel discourtesy towards you.” Ned laughed like a devil. “Acquitted him!” he shrieked; “and while he reserved the jest to retail it to his brazen drab here! Oh, I know that no road is too common for Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans! And my--and this that I have hugged to my soul and cherished as almost too sacred for my own thoughts to prey upon! To be used to the foul purposes of a harlot and her lecher! Oh, my God!--I will kill him!” Vergniaud essayed a manner of soothing. “The shrine of love can only be desecrated from within. These may storm at the closed windows of thy soul, and the draught but make the sacred lamp of thy heart burn brighter. Hold up thy head, my dear friend.” “I have never lowered it,” muttered Ned; but he seemed hardly to hear what the other said. “’Tis a specious theatrical jade,” went on Vergniaud, “and always alert for situations. Witness her babbling reunions in the Rue de Rohan, where enough gas is brewed in a night to float ten balloons. Witness her habit of attire, her drum, her dog--the misbegotten maniac that she rescued months ago from the Salpétrière, and hath devoted to some mission of devilry that is the crowning infirmity of his brain. Bah! It is all affectation, I believe. She will certainly pose by-and-by before the judgment-seat.” CHAPTER XI. In the early morning of the 10th of August a young man, wearing the uniform of the National Guards, was arrested in the Champs Elysées by a patrol of the very corps to which he presumably belonged. This young man--of a bright, confident complexion, crisp gold hair, and a rather girlish turn of feature--took his mishap with an admirable _sang-froid_.