nd''s eyes flashed with a strange, almost pathological radiance. She leaped forward and shook the bars, as if trying to break them: "His letter! His letter!"

Edith sympathetically handed over the letter: "You can read it yourself."

Manon Roland as hastily unfolded the letter with trembling hands, but after reading only a few lines, tears filled her eyes and she pressed the letter to her chest."So he has already escaped to Calvados!"

Making no secret to Edith, she took out the miniature of her lover that was enclosed in the letter, and kissed it repeatedly in floods of tears.

Edith shook inwardly at the sight. Feeling that it was inappropriate to continue peering, she silently withdrew to the shadow in the corner.

"I am lucky," Madame Roland murmured, stroking the letter as if caressing her lover''s body. "Finally, I can kiss you now without fear or shame. Finally, I can give myself completely to my love!"

Once again, she pressed the miniature to her bosom. "Promise me you will live on, my love! For if I were to die, my husband would not survive!"①

"Then, Manon, I should leave now," Edith said in a low voice, reluctant to interrupt the lady''s reverie. "You...take care of yourself."

But as she turned to leave, Edith heard Madame Roland sigh behind her.

"Don''t blame too much that Quenet of yours! In the face of the revolution''s tumultuous waves, each one of us is nothing but negligible pebble! "

The maiden paused for a moment, before walking slowly out of the dim prison.

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