"Will that mend his head?" inquired the gaoler with a scowl.
"Ah, my dear Defarge, that, I fear, is past praying for; but I have better hopes of my other patient."
"Who 's that?" asked the man, staring.
"A lady, my friend, in whom Citizen Dangeau is interested. A surgical case—but I have great hopes, great hopes of curing her," and with that he went out, smiling and talking all the way down the corridor.
Dangeau grew to look for his coming. Sometimes he merely got through his work as quickly as possible, but occasionally he would drop some hint of a plot,—of plans to overthrow Robespierre.
"The patient's friends are willing now," he said one day. "It is a matter of seizing the favourable moment. Meanwhile one must have patience."
Dangeau smiled a trifle grimly. Patience, when one's head is under the axe, may be a desirable, but it is not an easily cultivated, virtue.
Life had begun to look sweet to him once more. The mood in which he had suddenly flung defiance at Robespierre was past, and if the old, vivid dreams came back no more, yet the dark horizon began to show a sober gleam of hope.
Every sign proclaimed the approaching fall of Robespierre, and Dangeau looked past the Nation's temporary delirium to a time of convalescence, when the State, restored to sanity, might be built up, if not towards perfection, at least in the direction of sober statesmanship and peaceful government.
CHAPTER XXIX