As he spoke there was a rumble of wheels, and a rough cart came round the corner towards them. He touched her arm, and she looked up mechanically, to see that it held from eight to ten persons, all pinioned, and through her own dull misery she was aware of pity stirring at her heart, for these were prisoners on their way to the Place de la Revolution.
One was an old man, very white and thin, his scanty hair straggling above a stained, uncared-for coat, his misty blue eyes looking out at the world with the unseeing stare of the blind or dying. Beside him leaned a youth of about fifteen, whose laboured breath spoke of the effort by which he preserved an appearance of calm. Beyond them was a woman, very handsome and upright. Her hair, just cut, floated in short, ragged wisps about her pale, set face. Her lips moved constantly, her eyes looked down. Hébert laughed and pointed as the cart went by.
"That is where you 'll be if I give the word," he whispered. "Choose, then—a place there, or a place here,"—and he made as if to encircle her with his arm,—"choose, ma mie."
Aline closed her eyes. All her young life ran hotly in her veins, but the force of its recoil from the man beside her was stronger than the force of its recoil from death.
"The Citizen insults me when he assumes there is a choice," she said, with cold lips.
"The prison is so attractive then? The embraces of the Guillotine so preferable to mine—hein?"
"The Citizen has expressed my views."
Hébert cursed and flung away, but as she moved on he was by her side again.
"After all," he said, "you may change your mind again. Until to-morrow, I can save you."
"Citizen, I shall never change my mind. There is no choice; it is simply that."