Then, as Robespierre made an eager movement, she gasped in her agony—
"He is there; I know it!" and again she struggled to reach the window.
"I swear to you he is not there!" and exhausted he quitted hold of her to wipe his brow.
The first tumbril had passed. The songs and cries of the mob surrounding it were lost in distance, and these muffled sounds were mingled with the murmurs of the crowd awaiting the other tumbrils. Olivier was not in the first. But the second? He was perhaps in the second?
Clarisse would have cried out in her despair, but she struggled against the mad impulse and suppressed her choking sobs lest she should reveal the awful truth to Thérèse, who, still on her knees, her eyes turned to the desecrated church, prayed aloud:
"Our Father Which art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done...."
But she was interrupted by another outburst from the mob announcing the second tumbril. Already scraps of the furies' songs reached her from the distance:
"Dansons la Carmagnole!
Vive le son
Vive le son
Dansons la Carmagnole
Vive le son
Du canon!..."
Clarisse, taking advantage in a moment of Robespierre's relaxed vigilance, pressed nearer to the windows.
"The second cartload!"