Madame Gosner heard the step also, and suspended her work. Was it possible that some one was coming with news! Even in her despair this poor woman was always expecting news, and holding her breath as a footstep passed her door. It opened now, and Monsieur Jacques came in, pale, worn, and so weak from protracted excitement that he fell upon a chair, and wiped the heavy drops from his forehead before speaking a word. Madame Gosner looked at him earnestly. He understood the question in her eyes, and answered as if she had spoken. “Yes, my friend, I have been to the Bastille. I have wandered through those infernal vaults, and seen such sights.” “Have you been in _that_ cell?” Madame Gosner’s voice was sharp as the cry of an eagle. She had lost all control over herself. “Yes, I have been there, and I have seen him—your husband——” “Alive?” “Alive! I held his hand—I spoke with him. He told me his name. It was he who cried out when your voice penetrated his dungeon. They have practiced a foul fraud on us—one that shall be answered by the thunders of stones as we hurl down that accursed building.” Madame Gosner stood up, and lifted her clasped hands on high. “So help me God, I will never rest till this thing is done!” She spoke like a woman inspired; her very stature seemed to rise higher; her chest expanded itself. “Be it so. I have already sworn,” said Monsieur Jacques; and the two went out together, leaving Marguerite alone upon her knees, where she had fallen. All was changed now in the humble dwelling of Madame Gosner. No more work was done; scarcely was there food enough prepared to sustain the strength of that excited woman. Solemn duties lay before her—a gigantic task, which she would perform or die. The people of France were to be aroused into keener vindictiveness—the women organized—the clubs urged to swifter action. Stern and terrible had been the effect of Monsieur Jacques’ intelligence on the woman who had refused to consider herself a widow. Her whole being rose up in bitter wrath against what she deemed a horrible fraud. So fixed and deep were her prejudices against the royal family, that she never, for a moment, doubted that the king himself, if not the queen, had sanctioned the awful wrong that had been done, rather than cast a new witness of royal cruelty among the people to bear testimony against them.