“After all, it is well to leave a feast before the candles are burned out,” said the duke, smiling, and Trimousette added:
“It is not Monsieur Robespierre. It is the will of the good God who calls us, and we pass over the short bridge, not the long one of age and disease, but the shortest of all—and we pass together.”
The turnkey kept on in a shaking voice:
“Not a soul but you knows who is to be posted to-morrow, but I can tell you of two—the sister of Louis Capet, Madame Elizabeth, and the little boy who calls himself Vicomte d’Aronda, and saunters about the garden so jauntily.”
“It is a great honor to us that we go with the King’s sister, and as for the little lad—well, he has no father, no mother, no brother, no sister——”
It was the duke who said this. Trimousette had never shown something like weakness about the boy, and, falling back in her chair, struck her hands together with a gesture of anguish.
CHAPTER X
THE STAR
