Seth went out in the morning as usual, looking as true and uncompromising a patriot as any he was likely to encounter in the street. He rather prided himself on the way he played his part, and wore the tri-color cockade with an air of conviction. Grim of feature, he looked like a man of blood, a disciple of rioting, and he had more than once noticed that certain people who wished to pass unobserved shrank from him, which pleased him greatly. Early in the afternoon he returned hurriedly. It was so unlike him to come up the stairs hastily, two at a time, that Barrington opened the door to meet him.
"Shut it, Master Richard," he said, as he entered the room.
"What has happened?"
"The unexpected. Mademoiselle escaped from the Abbaye Prison last night."
"You are sure! You have seen Latour?"
"Sure! The news is all over Paris. The mob is furious. There are cries for a general massacre of prisoners, as happened a little while since, so that no others may escape. There is talk of a house-to-house search, and there are more ruffians in the streets to-day than I have seen at all."
"Is there any mention of Latour, any suspicion of him?"
"I heard none, but they talk of—"
"Bruslart!" ejaculated Barrington.
"No, of a scurvy devil of a royalist who helped mademoiselle into Paris."