“Dreadfully frightened, I dare say,” answered Marguerite, “and all its little breath knocked out against the stones. I saw that odious woman pass, and hid myself in the ruins. I saw her face—that face. It was the woman who pointed the carbine at Doudel. But we will think of her no more. You will go home with me now, papa.” “Not yet—not to her—that woman who calls herself Therese; as if I did not know. She will drag me again into the clubs and along the streets that men may gaze on my white hair, and curse their king. I will not go; they shall not force me to harm him. Therese! Therese! do you understand that I think the king a good man?” Marguerite flung her arms around the old prisoner. “I did not expect to hear you say that, my father, because you have been so cruelly treated; but I love the king, and the queen, too. Yes, if they tear me to pieces, I will love her to the end.” “That is a brave, good girl. I love them; I pity them—but what can we do? You, a young girl, and I an old man, broken down in body, and confused in brain. What can we do but give them love and pity?” “This we can do; it may not be much, because the lives of a young girl and an old man are of little value where the great of the earth are swept down and trampled under foot; but we can pray for them, watch for them, and give up our poor lives, if that will do any good. I will tell you a secret, my father. There was a time when this mob of coarse women and cruel men almost made me one of them, because of the awful wrong that has been done to you; but I had seen the king, and knew better than they did, how little right we had to condemn him. The queen had taken me in her arms; wept and pleaded for me. How could I turn against them? There might have been deception, but not there!—my heart always told me that.” “That is well, that is very well, my Therese. Listen now, I also have a secret; I have spoken with the king.” “You, my father? It could not have been on that awful day when they dragged us to Versailles with the mob?” The old man laughed a gentle, childish laugh. “No, no; I escaped them. You could not, but I did. Their cries deafened me. They were not women but demons, so I fled from them; most of all from _her_.” “I saw it, father, and strove to follow, but the crowd hemmed me in and dragged me onward. Women frantic to hurl themselves and their troubles against the queen, forced me to obey them. Oh, it was fearful! How the rain fell—how the mud flew—how the women howled! “In the midst of the storm we reached Versailles. Some of the leaders, fierce, handsome women, followed my mother into the assembly. The great mob poured in after them, clamoring for bread, for they were half famished. They demanded a sight of the baker and his wife.” “The baker and his wife,” repeated the prisoner, wondering. “By these names they insulted the king and queen,” said Marguerite, “as if they could help the barrenness of the earth.