"I thought I should find the old Jacobin," said a merry, hearty voice; "he never misses his club. I am on duty to-night in the neighborhood, and, says I, let us see the father, and get a crust out of him."
"Paul, my boy, thou art a good son, and I am glad to see thee. Come in: I want to talk seriously to thee."
The clothier entered, Helene followed him closely, and Paul closed the door. A lantern burned in the passage, by which some candles were soon lit in the cosy back sitting-room of the old sans-culotte. Paul looked curiously at the stranger, and was about to let a very impertinent grin cross his face, when his father taking off his red cap, spoke with some emotion, laying aside, under the impression of deep feeling, all his slang.
"My son, you have heard me speak often of my benefactor and friend, the Count de Clery, who for some trifling service, rendered when a lad, gave me the means of starting in life. This is his daughter and only child. My boy, we know how terrible are the days. The daughter of the royalist Count de Clery is fated to die if discovered. We must save her."
Paul, who was tall, handsome, and intellectual in countenance, bowed low to the agitated girl. He said little, but what he said was warm and to the point. Helene thanked both with tears in her eyes, begging them also to look to her cousin. Paul turned to his father for an explanation, which Papa Godard gave.
"Let him beware," said Paul, drily. "He is a spy, and merits death. Ah! ah! what noise is that?"
"Captain," cried half a dozen voices in the street, "thou art wanted. We have caught a suspicious character."
"'Tis perhaps Albert, who has followed me," cried Helene. "He thinks I would betray him."
Paul rushed to the door. Half a dozen national guards were holding a man. It was Citizen Gracchus Bastide. Paul learned that no sooner had he entered the house, than this man crept up to the door, listened attentively, and stamped his feet as if in a passion. Looking on this as suspicious, the patriots had rushed out and seized him.
"Captain," cried the Citizen Gracchus, "what is the meaning of this? I am a Jacobin, and a known patriot."