“How could I? She would reject it. No, there is but one way, and that I have pointed out. The time will come when this persecuted lady will seek the friendship of a man who controls the people of Paris, who knows how to excite or depress the passions of her enemies. When that day arrives, the money she would scorn now can be used in her behalf.” “God grant that the rabble does not get beyond all control before she comes to her senses,” said the count, thoughtfully. “Ignorance and passion are hard things to manage; but if Mirabeau cannot control them—where is the human power that can?” Du Berry laid her hand on his arm. “Some day your old friend may ask that protection for herself,” she said. “It shall not be asked in vain,” answered the count, holding the door for her to pass. When Madame Du Berry reached her lodgings she found Zamara, who had just come in from Versailles. His clothes were muddy, his face heavy with disappointment. “Madame, Zamara has failed; I could not get the ring; she never takes it from her finger,” he said. Madame only answered, “The fates are against us, Zamara.” CHAPTER LVI. THE ENERGY OF MADNESS. Madame Gosner and Marguerite were alone in their room, which had become more gloomy than ever since their disappointment. All the spare time these two women could obtain from their sorrow was given to the toil which earned their daily bread. Marguerite spent every day in the street, carrying her sweet burden of flowers from purchaser to purchaser. Her evenings were occupied generally in preparing bouquets for market, but on this particular night Madame Gosner was employed on some embroidery which was wanted in haste for a court-dress. The very nature of her employment, perhaps, exasperated the poverty of the elder woman, whose hatred of the monarchs of France amounted almost to monomania. She went on sewing with sharp energy, taking her stitches with jerks, as if she picked them out with the point of a dagger. Her breath came heavily as she worked, and her lips were pressed together—she had not spoken in an hour. Marguerite was sewing also—for the work must be done at a given time—but her thread came out with a more even pull, and the delicate surface of her work revealed no imperfect stitches. The dull, heavy gloom which lay upon her mother was not dark enough to kill all the girlhood in that young bosom; and more than once a faint smile flitted across her lips, as if the thoughts in her mind were not altogether melancholy. At last the young girl looked up from the dull monotony of her work, and, pausing with her thread half-drawn, listened eagerly. She had heard a step on the stairs, though her mother had not; for one moment the heart leaped in her innocent bosom, and a smile of loving expectation trembled on her lips, the next it died away and her face bowed in disappointment over her work.