He stopped abruptly. M. Mirande coughed.
"This is a strange confession," he said, after a long pause. "You have said nothing to Claire?"
"Heaven forbid!"
"Then say nothing!" the Republican replied with curt decision. "As for leaving this place to-day, it is impossible. A crisis is at hand; this house is watched. You would be recognized and arrested before you passed ten yards from the door. Moreover," he went on, seeming to ponder deeply as he spoke, "if you are right about Baudouin—and I doubt now whether I have been Wise to trust him—I see great and immediate danger before me. Therefore, if you would not desert the sinking ship, you must remain."
"I dare not," the young man muttered, shaking his head.
"What?" the old Girondin answered, his voice swelling, his eyes growing bright. "You a noble, and you dare not? You a noble, and you cannot govern yourself? Consider, M. le Vicomte! A few days may see me traverse the road so many traverse every day; the road of the guillotine. Then my daughter will be alone, defenceless, unprotected. I ask you—for I have no one else to whom I can turn—to be her brother and her guardian. Do you refuse?"
"You no longer distrust me?" the Vicomte muttered, his cheek hot.
"When you came to me a week ago," Mirande answered, "I did not foresee this crisis, nor the present danger. If I had, I might have received you differently. But, see you, what if this be the way in which I would try you?" he continued with energy. "What if this be the atonement heaven has assigned to you? In that case, do you accept, or do you refuse?"
"I accept," the Vicomte answered solemnly, carried away by the other's burst of feeling. "I accept the charge."
M. Mirande smiled, but only for a moment. Quickly the light died out of his face, leaving it stern and austere. His brow grew dark, and turning with a sigh to his table, he signed to his companion to leave him, and was presently immersed in figures and calculations.