They followed him into the great, gloomy prison, and a jailer led them into a long corridor with iron doors. There were several vacant cells, and in the first one François was thrust. Before the door closed upon him, he caught Diane’s hand, and suddenly, without the slightest premonition, burst into passionate weeping. She had seen him always laughing, joking, drinking, fighting, dancing, and singing, but never before, weeping. Even Egmont was stunned into silence at this strange burst of grief. In a moment or two François had recovered himself, and with an actor’s command of countenance, his face suddenly shone with smiles.
“You see, Diane, it’s rather hard to say good-by to you after all we have been through together, and then not seeing you for so many years, and being nursed and tended by you in the cellar. I think it’s those infernal wounds that have weakened me.”
“Why, François,” answered Diane, “now I come to think of it, you were always kind to me. You taught me all my stage tricks, and always let me take the curtain calls, and when I was in a hurry to get to the theatre, you often helped me wash the dishes; and when we were living on the boat, you carried many heavy parcels back and forth for me, and had always been good-natured and laughing and joking. After all, whether we are to live or whether we are to die, we shall meet again. Good-by, dear François.”
Diane leaned her cheek toward François, who kissed it.
“By the way,” said, Egmont, himself once more, “an old friend of yours, the Bishop of Bienville, is a fellow-lodger in the same corridor. The old scoundrel got caught in Paris, and we nabbed him as an enemy of the Commune. I think the order for his shooting is already given, but you won’t be far behind him, I can promise you.”
With that, the jailer thrust François back into a cell, and Egmont marched ahead, his two prisoners in the middle and a couple of armed guards behind.
When they reached a room which Egmont called his quarters, he very politely ushered Diane and Jean into it and closed the door. The armed guards remained outside, but Egmont notified them when he gave two raps on the floor with his heel that they were to enter.
“Now,” said he to his prisoners, addressing them both, “this young woman once treated me with great scorn. I tell her, and I tell you, Jean Leroux, that you shall be shot anyhow, and so shall Mademoiselle Diane Dorian, unless she agrees now and here to become my mistress.”
Neither Diane nor Jean turned pale. They had lived through so many horrors in the last frightful ten months, that they had come to regard terrible catastrophies as the every-day incidents of life.
Jean fixed his eyes on Diane, who turned to him with a radiant smile.