They remained like graven images, he on one knee, she with large eyes fixed upon his face.

They had neither of them looked on the old woman; they seemed even now unconscious of her presence.

But their ears had caught the sound of that measured tramp of feet up the stairs of the old house, and the halt upon the landing; they had heard the brief words of command: "Open, in the name of the people!" They knew quite well what it all meant; they had not wandered so far in the realms of romance that reality--the grim, horrible reality of the moment--had not the power to bring them back to earth.
That peremptory call to open in the name of the people was the prologue these days to a drama which had but two concluding acts: arrest, which was a certainty; the guillotine, which was more than probable.

Jeanne and Armand, these two young people who but a moment ago had tentatively lifted the veil of life, looked straight into each other's eyes and saw the hand of death interposed between them: they looked straight into each other's eyes and knew that nothing but the hand of death would part them now.

Love had come with its attendant, Sorrow; but he had come with no uncertain footsteps.