"A friend, Edmond? Who? Thérèse?"

Cléry coloured hotly.

"Why not Thérèse, Jacques?"

"Oh, if you like to play with gunpowder it's no business of mine, Edmond; but the girl is Hébert's mistress, and as dangerous as the devil, that's all. And so she told you that?"

Cléry nodded, a trifle defiantly.

"To-morrow," said Dangeau slowly; "where?"

"At all the prisons. One or two of the gaolers are warned, but I do not believe they will be able to do anything."

Dangeau was thinking hard.

"They sent me away on purpose," he said at last.

"Curse them!" said Cléry in a shaking voice.