I started to my feet with a suppressed cry.
One or two sitting near us complained of this churlish economy of wax. They imagined I was the culprit.
“Madame!” I muttered. “Look! she is indisposed!”
Her face was white and dreadful, like a skull. Hearing my voice she sat up.
“So! He has been guillotined!” she said.
She articulated with difficulty, swallowing and panting without stop.
“M. Thibaut, it is true, then, they say! But it was he made me kill the child. He has more need to forget than I. Is it not appalling? If I tell them now how I have learnt to fear, they will surely spare me. I cannot subscribe to their doctrines—that Club of the Cordeliers. If I tell them so—Danton being gone——”
Her voice tailed off into a hurry of pitiful sobs and cries. I welcomed the entrance of Cabochon with his list.
Her name was first on it.
As we stood arisen, dreading some hideous scene, she fell silent quite suddenly, got to her feet, and walked to the door with a face of stone.