Meanwhile, Danville’s anger cooled down; he recovered the use of that cunning sense which had hitherto served him well, and sent to recall the discarded servant.  It was too late.  Lomaque was already in a position to set him at defiance—­nay, to put his neck, perhaps, under the blade of the guillotine.  Worse than this, anonymous letters reached him, warning him to lose no time in proving his patriotism by some indisputable sacrifice, and in silencing his mother, whose imprudent sincerity was likely ere long to cost her her life.  Danville knew her well enough to know that there was but one way of saving her, and thereby saving himself.  She had always refused to emigrate; but he now insisted that she should seize the first opportunity he could procure for her of quitting France until calmer times arrived.

Probably she would have risked her own life ten times over rather than have obeyed him; but she had not the courage to risk her son’s too; and she yielded for his sake.  Partly by secret influence, partly by unblushing fraud, Danville procured for her such papers and permits as would enable her to leave France by way of Marseilles.  Even then she refused to depart, until she knew what her son’s plans were for the future.  He showed her a letter which he was about to dispatch to Robespierre himself, vindicating his suspected patriotism, and indignantly demanding to be allowed to prove it by filling some office, no matter how small, under the redoubtable triumvirate which then governed, or more properly terrified, France.  The sight of this document reassured Madame Danville.  She bade her son farewell, and departed at last, with one trusty servant, for Marseilles.

Danville’s intention, in sending his letter to Paris, had been simply to save himself by patriotic bluster.  He was thunderstruck at receiving a reply, taking him at his word, and summoning him to the capital to accept employment there under the then existing Government.  There was no choice but to obey.  So to Paris he journeyed, taking his wife with him into the very jaws of danger.  He was then at open enmity with Trudaine; and the more anxious and alarmed he could make the brother feel on the sister’s account, the better he was pleased.  True to his trust and his love, through all dangers as through all persecutions, Trudaine followed them; and the street of their sojourn at Paris, in the perilous days of the Terror, was the street of his sojourn too.

Danville had been astonished at the acceptance of his proffered services; he was still more amazed when he found that the post selected for him was one of the superintendent’s places in that very office of Secret Police in which Lomaque was employed as agent.  Robespierre and his colleagues had taken the measure of their man—­he had money enough, and local importance enough to be worth studying.  They knew where he was to be distrusted, and how he might be made useful.  The affairs of the Secret