Left alone again, Lomaque rose, and walked restlessly backward and forward, biting his nails.

“Danville comes back to-night,” he said to himself, “and the crisis comes with him.  Trudaine a conspirator!  Bah! conspiracy can hardly be the answer to the riddle this time.  What is?”

He took a turn or two in silence—­then stopped at the open window, looking out on what little glimpse the street afforded him of the sunset sky.  “This time five years,” he said, “Trudaine was talking to me on that bench overlooking the river; and Sister Rose was keeping poor hatchet-faced old Lomaque’s cup of coffee hot for him!  Now I am officially bound to suspect them both; perhaps to arrest them; perhaps—­I wish this job had fallen into other hands.  I don’t want it—­I don’t want it at any price!”

He returned to the writing-table and sat down to his papers, with the dogged air of a man determined to drive away vexing thoughts by dint of sheer hard work.  For more than an hour he labored on resolutely, munching a bit of dry bread from time to time.  Then he paused a little, and began to think again.  Gradually the summer twilight faded, and the room grew dark.

“Perhaps we shall tide over to-night, after all—­who knows?” said Lomaque, ringing his handbell for lights.  They were brought in, and with them ominously returned the police agent Magloire with a small sealed packet.  It contained an arrest-order and a tiny three-cornered note, looking more like a love-letter, or a lady’s invitation to a party, than anything else.  Lomaque opened the note eagerly and read these lines neatly written, and signed with Robespierre’s initials—­M.  R.—­formed elegantly in cipher: 

“Arrest Trudaine and his sister to-night.  On second thoughts, I am not sure, if Danville comes back in time to be present, that it may not be all the better.  He is unprepared for his wife’s arrest.  Watch him closely when it takes place, and report privately to me.  I am afraid he is a vicious man; and of all things I abhor Vice.”

“Any more work for me to-night?” asked Magloire, with a yawn.

“Only an arrest,” replied Lomaque.  “Collect our men; and when you’re ready get a coach at the door.”

“We were just going to supper,” grumbled Magloire to himself, as he went out.  “The devil seize the Aristocrats!  They’re all in such a hurry to get to the guillotine that they won’t even give a man time to eat his victuals in peace!”

“There’s no choice now,” muttered Lomaque, angrily thrusting the arrest-order and the three-cornered note into his pocket.  “His father was the saving of me; he himself welcomed me like an equal; his sister treated me like a gentleman, as the phrase went in those days; and now—­”

He stopped and wiped his forehead—­then unlocked his desk, produced a bottle of brandy, and poured himself out a glass of the liquor, which he drank by sips, slowly.

“I wonder whether other men get softer-hearted as they grow older!” he said.  “I seem to do so, at any rate.  Courage! courage! what must be, must.  If I risked my head to do it, I couldn’t stop this arrest.  Not a man in the office but would be ready to execute it, if I wasn’t.”