The woman Leridan appeared in the doorway. She held a guttering tallow
candle high above her head. Its flickering light illumined Chauvelin's
slender figure.

"Ah! the citizen Representative!" the woman ejaculated, as soon as she
recognised him. "We did not expect you again to-day, and at this late
hour, too. I'll tell my man--"

"Never mind your man," broke in Chauvelin impatiently, and pushed
without ceremony past the woman inside the house. "The child? Is it
safe?"

He could scarcely control his excitement. There was a buzzing, as of an
angry sea, in his ears. The next second, until the woman spoke, seemed
like a cycle of years.

"Quite safe, citizen," she said placidly. "Everything is quite safe. We
were so thankful for those men of the Surete. We had been afraid before,
as I told the citizen Representative, and my man and I could not rest
for anxiety. It was only after they came that we dared go to bed."

A deep sigh of intense relief came from the depths of Chauvelin's heart.
He had not realised himself until this moment how desperately anxious he
had been. The woman's reassuring words appeared to lift a crushing
weight from his mind. He turned to the man behind him.

"You did not tell me," he said, "that some of you had been here
already."