The jailer put down his ruler. "That is impossible; the prisoner Tournay is not here."
"Not here! Then he has been set at liberty!" The cry of joy that sprang to her lips checked itself, frozen by the quick negative gesture on the keeper's part. She placed one hand upon the iron rail before her and closed her fingers tightly around it. "He is not—Do not tell me he is dead!" she whispered, looking up at the inexpressive face with a pleading expression in her eyes, as if the jailer were the arbiter of Tournay's fate.
"Transferred to the conciergerie. You may see for yourself, citizeness," and he held up the book and pointed with his forefinger to the notation upon the neatly ruled page, "'Trans. to C.' That means that Robert Tournay, former colonel in the army of the Republic, was yesterday transferred to the prison of the conciergerie."
Edmé's heart grew cold. She had no means of knowing the full purport of the change, but she felt that it boded nothing but ill to Robert Tournay.
"Can you tell me why this removal was made?" she asked, although fearing to hear the answer.
"To facilitate his trial. As every one knows the Revolutionary Tribunal is in the same building with the conciergerie. A prisoner may be brought from his cell in the prison into the tribunal chamber, be tried, sentenced, and returned to his dungeon without once being obliged to go outside. He only passes out into the streets on his way to the guillotine."
"Has the trial already taken place? Can I see him if I go there at once?" she demanded hurriedly.
As the jailer saw the young woman's evident distress his voice softened a little as he made reply: "That you may be prepared for another disappointment, I tell you now, that in order to visit him in the conciergerie, you will have to be furnished with a written permit from some member of the committee. Robert Tournay is confined 'in secret.'"
"Thank you, citizen jailer," was the faint reply. As Edmé turned and left the prison lodge, the custodian of the Luxembourg bent over his work again. The book was already filled with lists of names, written evenly in long columns. This book was the record of all the prisoners of the Luxembourg. When one left the prison his departure was duly noted in the space opposite his name. His transfer to another jail was indicated by the abbreviation "trans." If he was summoned before the tribunal and acquitted, this fact was chronicled by the letters "acq." If he was sentenced to death by the guillotine, the jailer marked him with a little black cross "X." He had once been a schoolmaster, and it was his pride to keep his prison records with neatness and accuracy.
"Nevertheless, I am going to the conciergerie," said Edmé to herself as she passed along the Rue Vaugirard; "to the conciergerie," she repeated. She stopped abruptly in the street as the remembrance of the Citizeness Privat came to her mind. Putting her hand into her pocket, she drew out the card. "'Permit the Citizeness Privat to enter the rooms of the tribunal.' I will be Madame Privat to-night" was Edmé's resolution. "Once in the tribunal chamber, I shall at least be very near the prison."