"For the tortures you have inflicted so mercilessly on a poor mother as unhappy as yourself."
"Of whom do you speak! What do you mean?"
"You have often driven the unhappy prisoner to the very verge of that despair where you are yourself at this moment, by your revelations and brutalities. God now punishes you for all this by conducting this daughter, whom you love so much, to the scaffold."
"You said there was some man who could save her. Where is that man; what does he want; what does he demand?"
"This man requires that you cease to persecute the queen; that you ask her pardon for the outrages already committed against her; and that if at any time you perceive that this woman, who is also a weeping, despairing mother, by any unforeseen circumstance, or by some miracle from Heaven, is upon the point of saving herself, instead of opposing her flight, you do all in your power to aid and abet it."
"Listen, Citizen," said the woman Tison. "You are the man,—is it not so?"
"Well."
"It is you who promise to save my child?"
The unknown remained silent.
"Will you engage to do it? Will you promise; will you swear it? Answer me."