The hours flew by on the wings of an overwhelming happiness, and Love reigned supreme while evening faded into night. The awakening came when the two lovers scarce had finished dreaming. The tramp of feet on the stairs, the knock on the door, the raucous call: "Open in the name of the Law!"

It was quite dark in the room now - quite dark, only through the chink under the door there came a narrow streak of light from the candle which Marie had put on the table of the vestibule, and through the thin muslin curtains over the window the pale flicker of the street lamp cast the objects in the room into deeper gloom.

"Open, in the name of the Law!"

And Aurore, waking from her dream of happiness and love, was suddenly thrust out of the gates of her paradise and hurled back into the hideous world of grim reality. In a moment she was on her feet and across the room. Like a statue of despair she stood against the door with arms outstretched and head thrown back - a statue of despair but also of fury - a woman in defence of her lover.

"Come and kiss me, Aurore!" came a happy voice, broken with yearning, and in the gloom the arm she loved was stretched out in longing to her.

She babbled hoarsely, incoherently, like one half demented:

"You must fly, André! you must... you must... for my sake... there's time... through the window in the next room. The back yard... no one will see you... André... André... you must!"

"Come to me, Aurore... one more kiss," he said slowly; "ten more if there's time...."

"But they are here," she insisted. "André, can't you hear?"

Just then there was a timid knock at the door, and Marie's trembling voice called aghast: "In the name of God, Citizen Vallon, tell me what to do."

"Why, open the door, Marie," André replied quietly, "else they will break it open."

Then, as Marie's hesitating footsteps were heard shuffling across the vestibule, he murmured softly:

"There's time for one more kiss.... Come to me, Aurore."

Obviously she could not move. Horror, despair, had paralyzed her will and her limbs. The woman defending her lover! how could she move from that door, from that thin, futile barrier, the only thing that stood between her lover and death? The next instant André was beside her; she felt again that dear, strong arm around her, her head once more lay upon his breast, she felt the beating of that heart which she knew now was filled with her image. His lips eagerly devoured her eyes, her throat, her hair, and then in one long, impassioned kiss their lips met once more in enduring, all-conquering immutable love.

Outside in the vestibule there was bustle and noise and tramping of feet; hoarse commands and a murmur of voices, and Marie's wailing sobs. Then a knock at the door. A terrible cry rose to Aurore's throat, but it was smothered before it reached her lips, for André's hand was across her mouth.

"Open, in the name of the Law!"

"Three minutes, Citizen Soldiers," André replied glibly, "while I get a light."

And Aurore, clinging to him with convulsive hands, her face bathed in tears, her voice broken with sobs, whispered hoarsely:

"Kill me, André!... For mercy's sake kill me... I cannot live without your love."

"Look at me, sweet, and listen," he murmured hurriedly; and obediently she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

It was quite dark in the room, quite dark; but the feeble light of the street lamp faintly illuminated his face, and she could see that it was irradiated with a wonderful happiness.

"What you want now, my sweet," he said more slowly, "is courage."

"I have none, André," she murmured feebly.

"You will have when you remember that God in His mercy will give you someone else to care for, perhaps, instead of me."

"Someone else? I don't understand."

He pressed his lips close to her ear and whispered a few words very low, so that she could scarcely hear, but which brought a rush of colour to her pale cheeks. Then he looked once more into her eyes and smiled: the happiest, lightest of smiles.

"And if it is a boy," he said earnestly, but still with that happy smile, "do not teach him to hate all those Frenchmen who were his father's friends, with whom he dreamed dreams of making this old world new and happy, and who died for their ideals because they were men and not gods."

He raised her gently from the ground as he had so often done before, carried her into the next room, and there laid her down on the bed. She had partly lost consciousness, but her arms were twined round his neck, and her fingers so tightly linked together that he had some difficulty in getting them apart. She lay very still, but her eyes were open and her lips parted; her body was shaken with heart-rending sobs. He knelt down beside the bed and kissed her once more on the lips, drank the salt tears that lay upon her cheek; he kissed her ice-cold hands, her throat, her feet above the shoe, then slowly rose and went out of the room, closing and locking the door behind him.

She gave one terrific cry: "André!" and jumped up from the bed, her senses alert; she ran to the door - it was locked; with her hands she beat against the panels, she fell on her knees, clinging to that cruel door which hid him from her view, and calling, calling insistently, piteously, like a bird that has lost its mate. And all the while she heard the murmurs of voices, André's calm response: "Quite ready, Citizen Captain." A loud cry from Marie. The opening and shutting of the front door; the tramp of feet slowly... slowly... slowly dying away down the stairs.

And then - nothing more.

Marie coming in a few moments later found her in a dead swoon across the floor.