During the night which followed the second visit of Doctor Naudin, Jeanne Marie Simon had a long and earnest conversation with her husband. The first words which the wife uttered, spoken in a whisper though they were, excited the cobbler so much that he threatened her with his clinched fist. She looked him calmly in the face, however, and said to him softly, "And so you mean to stay perpetually in this hateful prison? You want to remain shut up here like a criminal, and get no more satisfaction out of life than what comes from tormenting this poor, half-witted boy to death?"
Simon let his hand fall, and said, "If there were a means of escaping from this infernal prison, it would certainly be most welcome to me, for I am heartily tired of being a prisoner here, after having prayed for freedom so long, and worked for it so much.
So, if there is a means--"
"There is such a means," interrupted his wife. "Listen to me!"
And Simon did listen, and the moving and eloquent words of his wife at length found a willing ear. Simon's face gradually lightened up, and it seemed to him that he was now able to release his wife from an oppressive, burdensome load.
"If it succeeds," he muttered--"if it succeeds, I shall be free from the mountainous weight which presses upon me day and night and shall become a healthy man again."
"And if it does not succeed," whispered Jeanne Marie, "the worst that can happen to us is what has happened to thousands before us.
We shall merely feed the machine, and our heads will tumble into the basket, with this difference, that I shall not be able to make any mark in my stocking. I would rather die all at once on the guillotine and have it over, than be dying here day after day, and hour after hour, having nothing to expect from life but pain and ennui."
"And I, too," said Simon, decidedly. "Rather die, than go on leading such a dog's life. Let your doctor come to me to-morrow morning. I will talk with him!"
Early the next day the doctor came in his long, black cloak, and with his peruke, to visit the sick Mistress Simon. The guards at the gate leading to the outer court quietly let him pass in, and did not notice that another face appeared in the peruke from that which had been seen the day before. The two official guards above, who had just completed their duties in the upper story, and met the doctor on the tower stairs, did not take any offence at his figure. The director of the Hotel Dieu was not personally known to them, and they were familiar with but little about him, excepting that he took the liberty of going about in his old-fashioned cloak, without giving offence to the authorities, and that he had permission from those authorities to come to the Temple for the purpose of visiting the wife of Simon.
"You will find two patients to-day up there," said one of the officials as he passed by. "We empower you, doctor, to take the second one, little Capet, under your charge. The boy appears to be really sick, or else he is obstinate and mulish. He answers no questions, and he has taken no nourishment, Simon tells us, since yesterday noon. Examine into the case, doctor, and then tell us what your opinion is. We will wait for you down in the council-room. So make as much haste as possible."
They passed on, and the doctor did really make haste to ascend the staircase. At the open door which led to the apartment of the little Capet and his "guardian," he found Simon.
"Did you hear, citizen?" asked the doctor. "The officials are waiting for me below."
"Yes, I heard, doctor," whispered Simon. "We have not much time.
Come!"
He motioned to the physician to pass along the corridor and to enter the room, while he bolted and locked the outer door. As the doctor entered, Mistress Simon lay upon her bed and looked at the new-comer with curious, glowing eyes.
"Who are you?" she asked, rising quickly from her bed. "You are not Doctor Naudin whom I expected, and I do not know you!"
Meantime the doctor walked in silence to her bed, and stooped over Jeanne Marie, who sank back upon the pillow.
"I am the one who is to help you escape from the Temple," he whispered. "Doctor Naudin has sent me, to work in union with him and you in effecting your release and that of the unfortunate Capet."
"Husband," cried Jeanne Marie to the cobbler, who was just coming in, "this is the man who is going to deliver us from this hell!"
"That is to say," said the doctor, with a firm, penetrating voice, "I will free you if you will help me free the dauphin."
"Speak softly, for God's sake, speak softly," said Simon anxiously.
"If any one should hear you, we are all lost! We will do every thing that you demand of us, provided that we can in that way escape from this miserable, good-for-nothing place. The air here is like poison, and to have to stay here is like being buried alive."