to question himself further, except to condemn himself.  Was he not viewing Lucien Bruslart through smoked glasses as it were?—­an easy fault under the circumstances.  Jeanne loved this man.  No greater proof was needed than her journey to Paris for his sake.  Barrington had done her a service for which he had been amply thanked.  To-night Bruslart would inform him that Jeanne was safe, and thank him again for what he had done.  There was an end of the business; and since his enthusiasm to help the people had somewhat evaporated—­Jeanne’s influence again, doubtless—­why should he not return home?  France held no place for him.  It would be better not to see Jeanne again, more honorable, easier for him.

At a corner he stopped.  Others had done the same.  Coming up the street was a ragged, shouting mob.  There were some armed with pikes who had made a vain attempt to keep the march orderly; others, flourishing sticks, danced and sang as they came; others, barely clad, ran to and fro like men half drunk, yelling ribald insults now at those who passed by, now at the world at large.  Women with draggled skirts and dirty and disordered hair were in the crowd, shrieking joyous profanity, striking and fighting one another in their mad excitement.  There were children, too, almost naked girls and boys, as ready with oath and obscenity as their elders, fair young faces and forms, some of them, debauched out of all that was childlike.  Every fetid alley and filthy court near which this procession had passed had vomited its scum to swell the crowd.  In the center of it rocked and swayed a coach.  Hands were plenty to help the frightened horses, hands to push, hands to grip the spokes and make the wheels turn faster.  The driver had no driving to do, so roared a song.  The inmate of the coach might be dumb with fear, half dead with it, yet if he shrieked with terror, the cry of no single throat could rise above all this babel of sound.

“Way!  Way for the cursed aristocrat!”

Children and women ran past Barrington shouting.  One woman touched him with a long-nailed, dirty, scraggy hand.

“An aristocrat, citizen.  Another head for La Guillotine,” she cried, and then danced a step or two, laughing.

Barrington stood on tiptoe endeavoring to see the miserable passenger of the coach, but in vain.  The men with pikes surrounded the vehicle, or the poor wretch’s journey might have ended at the first lamp.

“It’s a woman,” said some one near him.

“Ay! a cursed aristocrat!” shouted a boy who heard.  “Get in and ride with her,” and the urchin sped onwards, shouting horrible suggestions.

“A woman!” Barrington muttered, and his frame stiffened as a man’s will do when he thinks of action.

“Don’t be a fool,” said a voice in his ear, and a hand was laid upon his arm.

He turned to face a man who looked at him fixedly, continued to look at him until the crowd had passed, and others who had stopped to watch the procession had passed on about their business.