"Yes," repeated Maurice; "you are right—Maison-Rouge, do you think he is in Paris?"
"Dixmer is certainly."
"It is true, it is true; of course they will be together!" said Maurice, to whom these vague ideas seemed partially to restore reason.
The two friends commenced their search immediately, but all in vain. Paris is large and well adapted for concealment. Never was a pit known to conceal more obscurely the secret confided to its keeping by crime or misery.
A hundred times Maurice and Lorin passed over the Place de Grève, a hundred times passed the house that contained Geneviève, watched incessantly by Dixmer, as the priests watch the victim destined for sacrifice.
Geneviève on her side, seeing herself destined to perish, like all generous souls accepted the sacrifice, and only wished to die quietly and unnoticed; besides, she dreaded less for Dixmer than for the cause of the queen the publicity that Maurice would not fail to give to his vengeance.
She kept, then, a silence as profound as if death had already sealed her lips.
In the mean time, without saying anything to Lorin, Maurice had applied to the members of the terrible Committee of Public Safety; and Lorin, without speaking to Maurice, had, on his part, determined to adopt similar proceedings.
Thus on the same day a red cross was affixed by Fouquier Tinville to both their names, and the word "Suspects" united them in a sanguinary embrace.