"Citizeness Desmarais, you are guilty of a crime against the nation. I call for your imprisonment." Madam Desmarais looked at her husband in amazement, unable, at first, to grasp the import of his words. Just at this moment Charlotte, informed by Gertrude of what was taking place, entered the room. She was in time to hear the last words of the advocate; she ran to Madam Desmarais, clasped her in her arms, and exclaimed: "Great heaven! Imprison mother! Is it you, father, who thus threaten her!" "Leave the room," retorted the lawyer, accompanying the words with an imperious gesture. "Leave the room, my girl. Your presence is not needed." "I, leave the room, when you threaten mother? Never! Where she remains, I remain." "My child, be reassured," replied Madam Desmarais in an undertone, giving her daughter a look of intelligence which included the commissioner. "Your father is not speaking seriously. Everything will come out to our satisfaction." These words, which might have been heard by the commissioner, still further exasperated the lawyer, who, under the double goad of his hypocrisy and trepidation, cried: "Citizeness Desmarais, in making yourself the confederate in the escape of a criminal, you have exposed yourself to carrying your head to the scaffold!" At these words Charlotte uttered a piercing cry, and fell upon the neck of her mother, whom she still held in a tight embrace. But the latter, firmly persuaded that her husband was playing a role to conjure away the dangers which surrounded him, again said to her daughter, in order to calm her anguish: "But, poor child, know that your father is forced to talk this way in the presence of a commissioner of police." Overwhelmed by so many emotions, Madam Desmarais forgot this time to lower her voice sufficiently as she spoke to her daughter. Her words fell with distinctness on the ears of her husband, standing near the commissioner of the Section, who was still occupied in writing his report. False and cowardly men, when in the grip of fear, are capable of any act of brutality to protect their own lives. So it now was with Desmarais; for, leaden pale with fright, he said to himself: "I am lost! The commissioner heard my wife's words." Then, addressing the magistrate: "Citizen, I have called upon you for the arrest of Citizeness Desmarais, my wife." "And I have already told you, citizen," rejoined the commissioner, "that I have no warrant for her arrest." "My dear girl," whispered Madam Desmarais to her daughter, "your father insists on my arrest, knowing that he will not obtain it; be at ease." "Since, then, you refuse to arrest my wife, citizen commissioner, I call upon you to leave here two of your men to keep watch on Citizeness Desmarais until her case is settled."