True to his trust and his
love, through all dangers as through all persecutions, Trudaine
followed them; and the street of their sojourn at Paris, in the
perilous days of the Terror, was the street of his sojourn too.
Danville had been astonished at the acceptance of his proffered
services; he was still more amazed when he found that the post
selected for him was one of the superintendent's places in that
very office of Secret Police in which Lomaque was employed as
agent. Robespierre and his colleagues had taken the measure of
their man--he had money enough, and local importance enough to be
worth studying. They knew where he was to be distrusted, and how
he might be made useful. The affairs of the Secret Police were
the sort of affairs which an unscrupulously cunning man was
fitted to help on; and the faithful exercise of that cunning in
the service of the State was insured by the presence of Lomaque
in the office. The discarded servant was just the right sort of
spy to watch the suspected master. Thus it happened that, in the
office of the Secret Police at Paris, and under the Reign of
Terror, Lomaque's old master was, nominally, his master
still--the superintendent to whom he was ceremonially
accountable, in public--the suspected man, whose slightest words
and deeds he was officially set to watch, in private.
Ever sadder and darker grew the face of Lomaque as he now
pondered alone over the changes and misfortunes of the past five
years.
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