When it became known
that they had been secretly helping this lady to escape from
France, and when Danville's own head was consequently in danger,
I myself heard him save it by a false assertion that he had been
aware of Trudaine's conspiracy from the first--"
"Do you mean to say," interrupted the general, "that he
proclaimed himself in open court as having knowingly denounced
the man who was on trial for saving his mother?"
"I do," answered Lomaque. (A murmur of horror and indignation
rose from all the strangers present at that reply.) "The reports
of the Tribunal are existing to prove the truth of what I say,"
he went on. "As to the escape of Citizen Trudaine and the wife of
Danville from the guillotine, it was the work of political
circumstances, which there are persons living to speak to if
necessary; and of a little stratagem of mine, which need not be
referred to now. And, last, with reference to the concealment
which followed the escape, I beg to inform you that it was
abandoned the moment we knew of what was going on here; and that
it was only persevered in up to this time, as a natural measure
of precaution on the part of Citizen Trudaine. From a similar
motive we now abstain from exposing his sister to the shock and
the peril of being present here. What man with an atom of feeling
would risk letting her even look again on such a husband as
that?"
He glanced round him, and pointed to Danville, as he put the
question.
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