"Citoyenne."
"Yes, Citizen."
"Citoyenne, it would be wiser not to express to others the sentiments you have avowed to-night. They are not safe—for Marie Roche."
"No, Citizen."
Mademoiselle's back was towards him, and he had no means of discovering how she took his warning.
"That process of purging, of which I spoke, goes forward apace," he continued slowly; "those who have sinned against the people must expiate their sins, it may be in blood."
"Yes, Citizen."
Something drove him on—that subtle instinct which drives us all at times, the desire to probe deeply, to try to the uttermost.
"They and their innocent children, perhaps," he said gloomily, and her own case was in his mind. "What do your priests say—is it not 'to the third and fourth generation'?"
She turned and faced him then, very pale, but quite composed. There was no coward blood in her.