Clarisse, her eyes fixed on Vaughan, drank in every word. The Englishman went on, giving a precise and detailed account of Duplay's home--a home guarded by the wife, who watched the door in real bull-dog fashion, for it was the centre of mistrust and suspicion. Yes, Robespierre was well guarded. He, Vaughan, even with an introduction as Pitt's agent, had not been able to see him. He had only succeeded after many difficulties in obtaining an interview in the forest, where he was to confer with him in secret, until joined by the Duplay family. Constantly beset by the fear of the Committee of Public Safety, who watched his every movement, he had arranged for a picnic in the glades, to avert suspicion from this forest interview. Clarisse, pale and trembling, made a great effort to steady her voice, and asked-- "Is he coming here?" "Why, yes!" replied Vaughan; "he will be here directly. I am a little early." Although accustomed to the effect which the name of Robespierre always produced, Vaughan would have been surprised to see Clarisse's emotion had he watched her face, but being preoccupied, he looked at her without taking notice, and continued-- "Yes, the chance is opportune. It will enable me to ask for your passport. He cannot refuse." Clarisse looked at him, petrified with horror. "And is it to him that you will go for our passports?" she said. "Yes," replied Vaughan; "and I am quite sure of obtaining them." "Impossible!" exclaimed Clarisse. "It cannot be!" "Why, dear friend?" asked Vaughan, beginning to show signs of astonishment. "He would want to know my name." "Well! and I should tell him." "Oh no; anything but that!" she gasped, bounding forward as if to seal his lips with her hands; then she commenced to walk madly to and fro, no longer able to control her emotion. Vaughan, more and more mystified, looked at her in amazement. "I cannot understand you," he said. She gazed at him for a moment, silent and hesitating, then, as if suddenly resolved, she went up to him. "A word will explain everything. Since you are already possessed of half the secret of my life, it is perhaps better that you should know all." She paused, and then continued-- "Olivier's father----" "Well!" interposed Vaughan, now aghast in his turn, scarcely daring to understand her. "_He_ is Olivier's father!" And as if broken with the effort, she sank down by the fallen tree-trunk, and sobbed aloud. "Oh, my poor, poor friend!" exclaimed Vaughan as he bent over her. "I who thought your sufferings were at an end, and in my ignorance added to them by telling you so brutally what I thought of that man!" "You did not tell me more than I have thought myself," she said. "For a long time, to my contempt for him has been added an absolute abhorrence." Vaughan here interrupted her with a gesture, intimating silence, his eyes fixed on the distance. "Is it he?" she said in a trembling whisper.