"A man is to come here this midnight ... you are to follow him alone ... well wrapt in your mantle," said Marguerite with emphasis. "Alone ... do you hear, Marcel?... and he is to conduct you to a place whence you shall be able to flee without danger."
"This is too much kindness," Marcel answered with a smile. "I am grateful for the offer; I do not think of fleeing, that is certain.... We never have been so near the triumph."
"What!" cried Marguerite encouraged by new hope. "Is that true? And yet, why all this commotion.... Why this tumult in Paris ... why these alarming rumors?" And her apprehensions that for an instant had been allayed by the reassuring words of her husband, again regaining the upperhand, she proceeded sadly: "The precaution that you as well as Jocelyn took of enveloping yourselves in these cloaks, no doubt for the purpose of not being recognized on the street—all these things contribute to make me fear that you are deceiving yourself ... or that out of consideration for me, you are concealing the true state of things."
"Aunt forgot to tell you that three men seem to have been watching our house all evening," said Denise, and it did not escape her that Jocelyn seemed struck by the circumstance.
"And I also," observed Alison, "noticed at entering that there seemed to be three spies near the house. Their presence is strange."
"My friend," said Marguerite, seeking to detect from her husband's face whether his feeling of safety was real or assumed, "I sent you this evening a note that I wrote to you at our friend's, Simon the Feather-dealer. I there informed you of my impressions on my personal observations, and urged you to take precautionary measures."
"I received your letter, my dear wife," said Marcel, tenderly taking Marguerite's hands. "You trust me, do you not?... Very well; believe me when I assert that your fears are unfounded. Better than anybody else do I know what is going on in Paris this evening. Are our enemies active? I let them talk, certain that I shall lead my work to a happy issue, as my device proclaims. For the rest, is not my presence here the best proof of my confidence in the situation? Upon receipt of your letter I decided to leave the town-hall for a moment in order to come and calm your fears, to comfort you, and also to beg of you not to alarm yourself if it should happen that I do not return home all day to-morrow.... To-morrow grave matters will be decided. And to sum up," Marcel proceeded, cheerfully, "as I mean to overthrow all your objections, you dear, timid soul, I shall add that it was partly due to my modesty that I enveloped myself in that cloak. I meant to reach here and return without being stopped twenty times on the street by the cheers of the people. Despite the envy and hatred of some of the bourgeois partisans of the Regent, Marcel continues to be loved by the people of Paris."
"And you would not doubt it, Dame Marguerite," added Jocelyn, "if you had heard, as I did, the addresses delivered to-day by the trades guilds, all of which came to pledge their loyalty to Master Marcel."
Jocelyn's words, the cheerful and serene physiognomy of the provost and the tone of conviction that marked his words, somewhat allayed the fears of Marguerite and Denise, the latter of whom said to Marcel: "Your presence suffices to encourage us, dear uncle, just as the sight of the physician sometimes suffices to allay the pains of a patient."
"My worthy Jocelyn," Marcel said, cheerfully, turning to the champion, "that applies to you as much as to me ... you happy and beloved lover!"