"No, sister," replied the queen, mournfully; "I only sacrifice ourselves. The paper implicates no one."
At the cries of the woman Tison, Maurice and his colleague came toward her, when she immediately held out the paper to them. They opened it and read,—
"At L'Orient [the east] a friend still watches."
Maurice had no sooner cast his eyes on this paper than he started. The hand-writing seemed to him not unknown.
"My God!" cried he, "can it be that of Geneviève? But no, it is impossible; I am mad. It resembles hers, certainly; but what can Geneviève have to do with the queen?"
He turned round, and observed that Marie Antoinette was watching him attentively. As for the woman Tison, as she awaited her fate, she devoured Maurice with her eyes.
"You have done a good action," said he, to Tison's wife; "and you, Citizeness, a great one," addressing the queen.
"Then, sir," replied Marie Antoinette, "follow my example. Burn the paper, and you will perform a charitable one."
"You are joking, Austrian," said Agricola. "Burn a paper that may perhaps enable us to discover a whole covey of aristocrats? Good faith! no; we are not quite such fools as that."
"Ah, yes! do burn it; it might compromise my daughter," implored the woman Tison.