"Proud, are you?" said the deputy, with a snarl. "I suppose I'm not good enough to speak to you, eh?"
Charlotte still remained silent.
"Hoity toity!" continued Chabot, "with your fine airs and graces! You won't be so damned haughty in an hour's time, I know! You won't hold your head so high then, I'll be bound!" He came quite close and leered into her face. "Why do you treat me like this?" he asked. "Aren't I good enough for you?" There was no tremor of fear in the girl's attitude, but almost unconsciously she turned her head away. "Come here!" he said sharply. "Come closer!" Charlotte Corday did not move. Chabot stooped until his face was only a few inches from hers. "I've a good mind to take a kiss from you," he said, with an ugly smile. "What do you say to that, eh?" he asked. The girl moved her head still further away so as to avoid looking upon the hideous features which were now so close to her own pure lips.
"What's the use of making all this fuss?" said Chabot impatiently. Still no reply from the woman, who, beneath her appearance of calm and courage, could feel her heart beating wildly with terror and apprehension. "What?" continued the Deputy. "Look at me!" he commanded. Then, as Charlotte seemed to pay no attention to his orders, "Damn you!" he said, "you shall look at me!" And he placed his hands upon her shoulders and turned her quickly round so as to face him.
Then, and not till then, did her self-reliance give way. With the amorous touch of his hateful fingers upon her neck, she realized the helplessness and horror of her position. With a convulsive movement she tried to free her hands. The face of her enemy came closer and closer to hers, and she read the coarse desires of his vicious soul in the lustful brightness of his eyes. In a perfect agony of disgust and terror she fought desperately to fling herself out of his reach.
"Let me go!" she appealed, "let me go! Ah, God!" she cried, in a strangled voice, "Let me go!"
Her cry must have been loud enough to penetrate the thick prison door, for in a moment it was flung open, and two men, Richard and another, rushed into the room, and Charlotte was aware that the old warder had interposed his burly person between her and the man she loathed.
"I should have known better than to leave you alone with a man of his character," exclaimed the veteran, glowering at the ex-priest. "The wife will never forgive me."
Chabot had recovered his self-possession, and was regarding the old man's perturbation with evident amusement.
The stranger who had entered the cell with Richard was a young man of about thirty, clean-shaven, with dark, almost black hair shading a high, intellectual brow and eyes of unusual brilliance. He was dressed in the uniform, such as it was, of the National Guard, but his appearance was not that of a soldier, and the artist's block and sketching materials which he carried in his hand proclaimed him to be, what indeed he was, a portrait painter.