Marguerite spoke wearily, and her mournful eyes filled with tears. The shock that face had given her brought back that awful scene at the Bastille. The girl had a vivid imagination, and for a time the market, with all its gleaming fish, tinted vegetables, and crimson meat-stalls, vanished from her sight—she stood under the shadows of the Bastille, its grim towers shook to the foundation as a vast horde of human beings raged around them, men and women, soldiers and citizens, all crying out for some human life. A human life—whose was it? What was that which came crashing down from the tallest of those towers? The horror of the reality was scarcely more dreadful than the memory that woman’s face brought back upon her with a suddenness that struck the very life from her heart. “Let me go,” she said, appealing piteously to Dame Doudel; “I have stood here too long. They are all kind; but the air stifles me.” Marguerite took up her basket of flowers and left the market, followed by kindly words and pleasant looks from the women through whom she passed. With a slow, weary step she wandered away into the street, not once offering her flowers, but walking on dreamily, unmindful where she went, or whom she met. Indeed, she was so utterly heedless of everything around, that a woman was following her all the time, keeping a little way off, and she quite unconscious that the enemy she most dreaded was on her track, bitter and vindictive as a she wolf. “Will you sell me some flowers?” Marguerite started, looked up, and saw the strong, ugly face of Count Mirabeau bending over her. “Some flowers—some flowers!” repeated the girl. “Yes—yes. If—if you want them.” “Of course, I want them. Let me select, but with your help, though. Shall it be roses, or myrtle?” “Myrtle, I think,” said the girl, too sad for a choice of the brighter flowers. “But roses, too, and some of those sweet-smelling things.” “Here is a bunch in which they are all tied up. Will you take this, monsieur count?” “You know me again, sweet Marguerite?” said the count, taking the flowers and fastening them among the ruffles in his bosom. “Know me well enough to blush like your own roses; while I have seen that lovely face too often for my peace of mind.” “Do the flowers please you?” said Marguerite, dropping her eyes under the bold stare Mirabeau fixed upon her. “Please me? Of course they do. Here is a likeness of the king, if you can forgive the head for the sake of the gold.” “A Louis d’or,” said Marguerite, hesitating—“a Louis d’or?” She held the coin a moment, and gave it back again, with a gentle shake of the head. “What, my little Jacobin, do you hate the king like that? My foster-brother told me a far different story.” “Hate the king? Oh, no! I love the king, and am no Jacobin, though I do sell flowers, and in some sort belong to the market.” “Love the king, and refuse to take his likeness, even when stamped on gold, that is beyond belief.”