She took no notice of the question, but went on in great excitement-- “What are these horrors that you speak of? Have you seen them? What are they, I say? Do they tear aristocrats limb from limb? This truth that he used to preach--my God! there is no hope for the world until they massacre them each one!” “That who used to preach?” said Ned, quite shocked and bewildered. “Liars! liars! liars!” cried the girl, striking hand into hand. Then suddenly she had flung herself round against the tree, and, in a storm of tears, had buried her head in her arms. “Go!” she cried, in a muffled voice. “Why do you come back with the other memories? Why do you notice or speak to me? Can you not see that I am accursed--an outcast?” He would have essayed to comfort, to reassure her. Her wayward passion took his breath away. Even while he hesitated, she turned upon him once more:-- “Are _you_ not also of the _haute noblesse_? What truth or honour or courage can be in you, then? Yes, courage, monsieur. You have fled because you were afraid they would kill you, as _he_ fled before his pursuing conscience. You will not tell me the truth, because you are shamed in its revelation. My God! what cowards are you all! But only say to me that he is dead--stabbed to the heart--and I will fall down and kiss your feet!” To Ned, standing there dumfoundered, came an inkling of a tragedy. “That Suleau,” he was thinking, half mazed, “did he jockey me; and was it St Denys after all?” He looked at the stressed and wild-wrought creature before him in sombre pity. “So M. de St Denys has left Méricourt?” he said gravely. At that Mademoiselle Lambertine broke into a shrill laugh. “M. de St Denys? But who spoke of M. de St Denys? It was he, was it not, that waived his privileges of honour that he might be on a level with us that have none? And why should he leave Méricourt, where he was ever a model and an example of all that he preached?” “It cannot have been he, then, that I saw in Paris?” The girl gasped, stared, and took a forward step. “You saw him? And he was amongst the killed?” “Théroigne!” “Monsieur, monsieur! We have heard how the people rose; we are not here at the bounds of the earth.” “But it was no slaughter of aristocrats.” She gazed at him dumbly with feverish eyes, then sighed heavily, shook her head, and moved out into the open. “So you come again to Méricourt?” she said. “You will find it wonderfully changed in these few months. Now we are possessed by a devil, and now we are under the dominion of a saint. There is an idol deposed, and a holy image raised in its place. Will you be walking, monsieur, or shall I go first?” “We will go together.” She laughed again with a shrill, mocking sound.