As I gained the street, at a considerable distance from the "Place," I was able to increase my speed; and I did so with an eagerness as if the world depended on my haste. At any other time I would have bethought me of my disobedience to the Père's commands, and looked forward to meeting him with shame and sorrow, but now I felt a kind of importance in the charge intrusted to me. I regarded my mission as something superior to any petty consideration of self, while the very proximity in which I had stood to peril and death made me seem a hero in my own eyes.
At last I reached the street where we lived, and, almost breathless with exertion, gained the door. What was my amazement, however, to find it guarded by a sentry, a large, solemn-looking fellow, with a tattered cocked hat on his head, and a pair of worn striped trowsers on his legs, who cried out, as I appeared, "Halte là!" in a voice that at once arrested my steps.
"Where to, youngster?" said he, in a somewhat melted tone, seeing the shock his first words had caused me.
"I am going home, sir," said I, submissively. "I live at the third story, in the apartment of the Père Michel."
"The Père Michel will live there no longer, my boy; his apartment is now in the Temple," said he, slowly.
"In the Temple!" said I, whose memory at once recalled my father's fate; and then, unable to control my feelings, I sat down upon the steps, and burst into tears.
"There, there, child, you must not cry thus," said he; "these are not days when one should weep over misfortunes; they come too fast and too thick on all of us for that. The Père was your tutor, I suppose?"
I nodded.
"And your father—where is he?"
"Dead."