"There are many questions I
should like to ask first, about your sister and yourself. Do you
mind allowing me to refer for a moment to the time when we last
met?"
He addressed this inquiry to Rose, who answered in the negative;
but her voice seemed to falter, even in saying the one word "No."
She turned her head away when she spoke; and Lomaque noticed that
her hands trembled as she took up some work lying on a table
near, and hurriedly occupied herself with it.
"We speak as little about that time as possible," said Trudaine,
looking significantly toward his sister; "but we have some
questions to ask you in our turn; so the allusion, for this once,
is inevitable. Your sudden disappearance at the very crisis of
that time of danger has not yet been fully explained to us. The
one short note which you left behind you helped us to guess at
what had happened rather than to understand it."
"I can easily explain it now," answered Lomaque. "The sudden
overthrow of the Reign of Terror, which was salvation to you, was
destruction to me. The new republican reign was a reign of mercy,
except for the tail of Robespierre, as the phrase ran then. Every
man who had been so wicked or so unfortunate as to be involved,
even in the meanest capacity, with the machinery of the
government of Terror, was threatened, and justly, with the fate
of Robespierre.
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