Then at a gesture he gave up his velvet cap, and
saw it decorated with a white cross of the same material.
"Now the register, Monsieur," Maillard continued briskly; and waving him
in the direction of a clerk, who sat at the end of the long table, having
a book and a ink-horn before him, he turned to the next comer.
Tignonville would fain have avoided the ordeal of the register, but the
clerk's eye was on him. He had been fortunate so far, but he knew that
the least breath of suspicion would destroy him, and summoning his wits
together he gave his name in a steady voice. "Anne Desmartins." It was
his mother's maiden name, and the first that came into his mind.
"Of Paris?"
"Recently; by birth, of the Limousin."
"Good, Monsieur," the clerk answered, writing in the name. And he turned
to the next. "And you, my friend?"
CHAPTER IV. THE EVE OF THE FEAST.
It was Tignonville's salvation that the men who crowded the long white-
walled room, and exchanged vile boasts under the naked flaring lights,
were of all classes. There were butchers, natives of the surrounding
quarter whom the scent of blood had drawn from their lairs; and there
were priests with hatchet faces, who whispered in the butchers' ears.
There were gentlemen of the robe, and plain mechanics, rich merchants in
their gowns, and bare-armed ragpickers, sleek choristers, and shabby led-
captains; but differ as they might in other points, in one thing all were
alike.
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