“There is one,” said Lomaque, making his way to the back of the official chair. “Will it be convenient to you, citizen, to take the case of Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville first? Two of my men are detained here as witnesses, and their time is valuable to the Republic.”
The president marked a list of names before him, and handed it to the crier or usher, placing the figures one and two against Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville.
While Lomaque was backing again to his former place behind the chair, Danville approached and whispered to him, “There is a rumor that secret information has reached you about the citizen and citoyenne Dubois. Is it true? Do you know who they are?”
“Yes,” answered Lomaque; “but I have superior orders to keep the information to myself just at present.”
The eagerness with which Danville put his question, and the disappointment he showed on getting no satisfactory answer to it, were of a nature to satisfy the observant chief agent that his superintendent was really as ignorant as he appeared to be on the subject of the man and woman Dubois. That one mystery, at any rate was still, for Danville, a mystery unrevealed.
“Louis Trudaine! Rose Danville!” shouted the crier, with another rap of his bludgeon.
The two came forward, at the appeal, to the front railing of the platform. The first sight of her judges, the first shock on confronting the pitiless curiosity of the audience, seemed to overwhelm Rose. She turned from deadly pale to crimson, then to pale again, and hid her face on her brother’s shoulder. How fast she heard his heart throbbing! How the tears filled her eyes as she felt that his fear was all for her!
“Now,” said the president, writing down their names. “Denounced by whom?”
Magloire and Picard stepped forward to the table. The first answered—“By Citizen Superintendent Danville.”
The reply made a great stir and sensation among both prisoners and audience.