"A ruse-de-guerre; I wanted you to let me in. Where can I hide? They may be here soon."
"There on the roof, or in the observatory," she said pointing to the other door.
"Do not tell them."
"Why should I?" she replied. Calm though the man undoubtedly was, she despised him; there was no dirt, she knew well, that he would not eat if it suited his purpose to do so.
He went up and concealed himself on the roof under the big telescope. Meanwhile she waited. Emotions had succeeded each other so rapidly that day in her heart that she felt incapable of further stress; a dull feeling of pain remained, like the numbness and sense of injury after a severe wound. The firing receded towards the palace, and presently all was comparatively silent in the city again.
At about nine o'clock the bell of the front-entrance rang; but she did not dare to leave the room now that the door was broken down. Then after a while came the sound of people coming up-stairs.
"There is no lady here; the young lady went back the night before last to her aunt's," said a voice. It was the old woman's; with a bound of joy and a passionate craving for the sympathy of her own sex, Lucile rushed to the door and opened it. Bettine was there, and with her an officer of the rebel army, who handed a letter to her with these words: "The President sends this to you, Madam."
"The President!"
"Of the Council of Public Safety."
The note merely informed her that the Government troops had been repulsed and ended with the words: Only one result is now possible, and that will be attained in a few hours.