His sole chance lay in showing the lad on which side danger pressed him most closely; on frightening him completely.

And when Louis did not reply:-- "You do not answer me ?" Blondel said in his sternest tones.

"You do not reply?
Am I to understand that you decline?
That you refuse to perform the task which the State assigns to you?
In that case be sure you will perish with those whom the Two Hundred know to be the enemies of Geneva, and for whom the rack and the wheel are at this moment prepared." "No!" Louis cried passionately; he almost fell on his knees in the open street.

"No, no! I will go anywhere, do anything, Messer Syndic! I swear I will; I am no enemy! No conspirator!" "You may be no enemy.

But you must show yourself a friend!" "I will! I will indeed." "And no syllable of this will pass your lips ?" "As I live, Messer Syndic! Nothing! Nothing!" When he had repeated this several times with the earnestness of extreme terror, and appeared to have laid to heart such particulars as Blondel thought he should know, the Syndic dismissed him, letting him go with a last injunction to be silent and a last threat.
By mere force of habit the lad would have gone forward and entered the College; but on the threshold he felt how unfit he was to meet his fellows' eyes, and he turned and hastened as fast as his trembling limbs would carry him towards his home.