"It was Quatre Pattes, monsieur. I lodge in her house."
"A good name, I should say. I wish you better luck and safer lodgings. Adieu"; and he went quietly on his way.
XIX
Of the sorrowful life of loneliness, of François's arrest, and of those he met in prison.
François stood still. He was alone, and felt of a sudden, as never before, the solitude of an uncompanioned life. The subtle influence of the Terror had begun to sap the foundations of even his resolute cheerfulness. It was this constancy of dread which to some natures made the terrible certainties of the prisons a kind of relief. He looked after the retreating figure as it moved along the quai and was lost to view in the Rue des Petits-Augustines.
"Toto," he said, "I would I had his clever head. When 't is a question of hearts, mon ami, I would rather have thine. And now, what to do?" At last he moved swiftly along the borders of the Seine, and soon regained his own room. The Crab would go to the afternoon market; her net swung over her arm at the time he had seen her; and, as she always moved slowly, he had ample leisure.
He packed his bag, and taking from his pistol the paper he had secured when in company with Grégoire, replaced it under the lining of his shoe. Its value he very well knew. After a moment's reflection, he put his pistol back on the peg high up in the chimney. He had been in the house nearly an hour, and was ready to leave, when he heard feet, and a knock at the locked door. A voice cried:
"In the name of the republic, open!" He knew that he was lost.
"Dame! Toto. We are done for, my little one"; and then, without hesitation, he opened the door. Three municipals entered. One of them said:
"We arrest thee, citizen, as an émigré returned."