"You need not be afraid," he said; "there is no one here but Pétronelle."
"And you."
"Oh! I echo your words. Poor Marie Antoinette!"
"You pity her?"
"How can I help it?"
"But you are of that horrible National Convention, who will try her, condemn her, execute her as they did the King."
"I am of the National Convention. But I will not condemn her, nor be a party to another crime. I go as Governor of the Conciergerie, to help her, if I can."
"But your popularity—your life—if you befriend her?"
"As you say, mademoiselle, my life, if I befriend her," he said simply.
She looked at him with renewed curiosity in her gaze.
How strange were men in these days! Paul Déroulède, the republican, the recognised idol of the lawless people of France, was about to risk his life for the woman he had helped to dethrone.
Pity with him did not end with the rabble of Paris; it had reached Charlotte Corday, though it failed to save her, and now it extended to the poor dispossessed Queen. Somehow, in his face this time, she saw either success or death.
