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“Yes, I know,” said Maison-Rouge. “The woman whose husband pushed her into the Queen’s cell, isn’t that right? The woman who was arrested before my very eyes?”

“Geneviève?”

“Yes, Geneviève.”

“So Geneviève is a prisoner, sacrificed by her husband, sent to her death by Dixmer? … Oh! I see it all, I understand everything now! Tell me what happened, Knight, tell me where she is, tell me how I can find her. Knight … that woman is my life. Do you hear?”

“Well, I saw her; I was there when she was arrested. I too had come to break out the Queen! But Dixmer and I weren’t able to communicate with each other, and so we doubled up and our two plans did harm, not good.”

“And you didn’t save her, at least, your sister, Geneviève?”

“How could I? Iron bars separated me from her. Ah, if you’d been there, if we could have joined forces, that cursed bar would have yielded and we would have saved both women.”

“Geneviève! Geneviève!” murmured Maurice.

Then he looked at Maison-Rouge with a frightening expression of rage.

“And Dixmer, what’s happened to him?”

“I don’t know. He ran one way and I ran the other.”

“Oh!” hissed Maurice between clenched teeth. “If I ever get my hands on him …”

“Yes, I know. But nothing is desperate yet for Geneviève,” said Maison-Rouge, “whereas here, for the Queen … Oh, look, Maurice, you’re a man with a heart, a powerful man; you have friends.… Oh, please, I beg you as one prays to God.… Maurice, help me save the Queen.”

“You think I would?”

“Maurice, Geneviève beseeches you through me.”

“Oh! Don’t say that name, monsieur. How do I know you didn’t sacrifice that poor woman, just like Dixmer?”

“Monsieur,” replied the Knight loftily, “the only person I know how to sacrifice, when I support a cause, is myself.”

At that moment the door to the jurors’ anteroom opened again, just as Maurice was about to reply.

“Silence, monsieur!” said the Knight. “Silence. The jurors are back.”

Maison-Rouge was pale and tottering; he placed his trembling hand on Maurice’s arm.

“Oh!” murmured the Knight. “Oh! My heart is failing me.”

“Courage; get a grip on yourself or you’re finished!” said Maurice.

The Tribunal had indeed returned, and the news of its return spread throughout the corridors and galleries. The crowd surged forward again into the courtroom and the lights seemed to revive all on their own for this decisive and solemn moment.

The Queen was brought back in; she held herself erect, majestically still, regal, her eyes steady and her lips tightly pressed together.

They read her the decree that condemned her to death.

She listened without blanching, without batting an eyelid, without moving a muscle of her face, without giving any appearance of emotion.

Then she turned to the Knight and addressed a long and eloquent gaze to him, as though to thank this man whom she had never seen other than as a monument of devotion. Then, leaning on the arm of the officer of the gendarmerie who commanded the armed forces, she walked out of the tribunal, calm and dignified.

Maurice let out a long sigh.

“Thank God!” he said. “Nothing in her deposition compromised Geneviève. There is still hope.”

“Thank God!” echoed the Knight of Maison-Rouge. “It’s all over and the struggle is at an end. I didn’t have the strength to carry on.”

“Be strong, monsieur!” Maurice whispered.

“I will be strong,” replied the Knight.

They shook hands and both men moved off through two different exits.

The Queen was taken back to the Conciergerie: the bell of the great clock struck four as she stepped inside.

At the far end of the Pont-Neuf, Maurice was stopped by Lorin’s outstretched arms.

“Halt there!” he said. “You can’t pass.”

“Why’s that?”

“First, where are you going?”

“Home. That’s just it: I can, now that I know what’s happened to her.”

“So much the better. But you can’t go home.”

“What’s the reason?”

“The reason is this: two hours ago, the gendarmes came to arrest you.”

“Ah!” cried Maurice. “All the more reason.”

“Are you mad? What about Genevi