Mademoiselle looking straight before her, with eyes that now saw nothing, was not aware of his presence, as in a strained, far-away voice she answered the questions Fouquier Tinville put to her.
"Your name?"
"Aline Marie de Rochambeau."
"You are a cousin of the late ci-devant and conspirator Montargis?"
"Yes."
A sort of howl went up from the back of the room, where a knot of filthy men stood gesticulating.
"And you were betrothed to that other traitor Sélincourt?"
"Yes."
The answers dropped almost indifferently from the scarcely parted lips, but she shrank and swayed a little, as a second shout followed her reply, and she caught curses, cries for her death, and a woman's scream of, "Down with Sélincourt's mistress! Give her to us! Throw her down!"
Tinville waved for silence and gradually the noise lessened, the audience settling down with the reflection that perhaps it would be a pity to cut the play short in its first act.