"To deceive me would be hell for both of us, for all of us," said the
woman.

He tried to laugh at her, but he could not even bring a smile to his
lips at that moment.

Pauline caught his hand and pulled him to the window, opened it, and
pointed.

"There. You know what I mean," she said.

The roar of Paris floated up to them, the daily toil, the noise of it,
its bartering, its going and coming. Men and women must live, even in a
revolution, and to live, work. Underneath it all there was something
unnatural, a murmur, a growl, the sound of an undertone, secret, cruel,
deadly; yet the woman's pointing finger was all Lucien was conscious of
just now.

"You know what I mean," she repeated.

He shook his head slightly, dubiously, for he partly guessed. In that
direction was the Place de la Revolution.

"If this other woman should take my place, if you lied to me, I would
have my revenge. It would be easy. She is an aristocrat. One word from
me, and do you think you could save her? Yonder stands the guillotine,"
and she made a downward sweep of the arm. "It falls like that. You
couldn't save her."