"You would be right if Master Marcel's orders would be obeyed, if these were still the days when, lording it over all Paris, he had the first place at all ceremonies.... But the times have changed, good Dame Marguerite. At this very hour in which I am speaking to you, your husband's authority is about to be ignored. If he tried to order one of the gates of Paris to be opened, his action would confirm the rumors concerning his treason. People would cry: 'Hold the traitor! Death to the traitor!' A hundred avenging arms would rise, and Master Marcel would fall under their blows dead, disfigured, bleeding, butchered!... His body would be torn to pieces.... That would then be his fate!" "Enough! Enough!" stammered Marguerite, shivering and hiding her face in her hands. "This is horrible. Hold your tongue!" "Would not such a death be awful, dear Dame Marguerite? Therefore, in order to save his friends from such a fate, my husband charged me to come and offer you his services." Despite the poor opinion in which she held Maillart and his wife, whose envy she was aware of, Marguerite did not imagine that the proposition of the councilman, one of Marcel's oldest friends and, like himself, of the popular party, could conceal a trap or a snare. Marguerite even took it for a token of sincere pity, easily supposable from the part of envious people at the moment of their triumph over a rival. Moreover, did not the state of public opinion in Paris, on which Marguerite had that very evening sought to assure herself, but too well confirm the words of the councilman's wife on the subject of Marcel's increasing unpopularity? On the other hand, Marguerite was too well acquainted with her husband's force of character and his energy not to feel assured that, unless he was reduced to utter extremities, he never would decide to leave Paris as a fugitive. Nevertheless, the hour of that terrible extremity might arrive. In that case Maillart's offer was not to be despised. These thoughts rapidly flashed through Marguerite's mind. She remained pensive and silent for a moment, while the councilman's wife observed her closely and anxiously awaited her answer. "Dame Maillart," finally answered Marguerite, "I wish to believe, I believe in the generous impulses that dictated the tender of services that you have just made me in the name of your husband." "Then, it is understood?" said the councilman's wife, with an eagerness that should have excited Marguerite's suspicion. "The emissary will be here at midnight. Let your husband follow him without taking any companion.... He must have no escort.... That is understood."