“Forgive me, monsieur,” she said, in gentle penitence; “but since that day I weep so easily. Sometimes, as I sit here weaving the flowers together, the tears will drop in among their leaves like rain; but that is when I am thinking of him.” “But you must shed no more tears.” “Not if I can help it; but when I thought of your belonging to those fierce men, I could not keep the tears back. Forgive me, but I could not.” “But I do not belong to those fierce men; if anything they belong to me,” said St. Just. “Come, come, let us be friends. Some loose flowers are lying on the table there—while we wait for the dame, let me see you work.” “I did not know that one was left! She must have brought them after I went away,” said the girl, starting up and drawing her chair to the table. “How stupid; but it will only take a little time.” While Marguerite was busy assorting her flowers, the young man drew his chair to the table, and watched her slender fingers as they twined the stems together; then, as if unconsciously, he took up the blossoms one by one, and held them for her use. He saw that her little hand trembled as she took the flowers, and a smile stole over his face as he remarked the color come and go in hers. Something was evidently on her mind, as she arranged one bouquet with wonderful care—a tiny thing, in which a half-open blush-rose was laid softly in a nest of violets. Marguerite tied this with a delicate bit of ribbon taken from her neck, examined it critically, with her head on one side, as a bird sometimes coquets with its food, then laid it away with a sigh, lacking courage for the purpose that had dawned in her mind. A noise below—some one coming up stairs. “It is the dame,” said Marguerite, pausing to listen, “and coming up here. I knew she would.” The door was flung open, and a little woman, in a broad-bordered cap, tied around the head with a black ribbon, stood on the threshold with a half-uttered sentence on her lips. “I find you here, little one—so much the better.” Her words were cut short by the utter astonishment that possessed her on seeing a strange man in the room. “Oh, my friend, it is the gentleman who saved me; who tried——” “Ah, I know,” faltered the little woman, pressing a hand quickly to her bosom. “He would have saved me from being the poor widow I am.—Ah, monsieur! I have nothing but gratitude here.” Dame Doudel sat down on the white bed and began to weep. St. Just arose to go. The tears of this poor widow pained him. They brought back that awful scene in the Bastille too vividly. Marguerite saw the movement. She took the tiny cluster of flowers from the table, and stood hesitating, with one foot advanced. A faint smile crept over the young man’s lips, for he lost nothing of this; and when she came swiftly toward him, he held out his hand for the flowers. Marguerite gave him her little bouquet, and turning to Dame Doudel, said, in modest apology for what she had done,