"At last it is too much. I want to end it. I can endure it no longer. Nicole, let me die now and be through with the suspense. We cannot escape. They are guillotining fifty a day. Next month it will be a hundred. Let us be firm and not await another month of torture."
"Then, Barabant, after all I have done," she said reproachfully, "you would send me to the guillotine?"
"You?"
"I follow where you go."
But their companions cried in alarm: "What are you doing?"
"You'll betray us all!"
"For mercy's sake, be silent!"
Barabant, without energy to pursue long any determination, resigned himself wearily to their protests and the appeal of Nicole.
The chariot rolled out into the streets, where the passers-by, weighted down with the prevailing depression, regarded them without hatred and without curiosity. Their journey led them by the gardens of the Luxembourg, resplendent with green and the glisten of cool fountains. In the chariot some one said:
"Pleasant weather!"