Страница 650 из 896

Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctor

walked with a steady head: confident in his power, cautiously

persistent in his end, never doubting that he would save Lucie's

husband at last. Yet the current of the time swept by, so strong

and deep, and carried the time away so fiercely, that Charles had

lain in prison one year and three months when the Doctor was thus

steady and confident. So much more wicked and distracted had the

Revolution grown in that December month, that the rivers of the

South were encumbered with the bodies of the violently drowned by

night, and prisoners were shot in lines and squares under the

southern wintry sun. Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors

with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that

day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane,

indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among

assassins and victims, he was a man apart.