table flickered and then died, plunging the hall into darkness.
"I''m a little scared, Georges," Louise''s childlike voice trembled.
"Let me light the candles again. It''s alright, Citizeness Danton," Charlene soothed in a gentle voice.
"No need," Danton said, snuffing out his cigarette and waving his hand. "Everyone go back to your own rooms."
No one bid each other goodnight. After the rustling of skirts and footsteps faded away, the empty hall fell silent once more.
---------------------
Edith leaned against the balcony railing, gazing wistfully at the curtain of rain outside.
The once carefree and joyful heart of the young girl was now shrouded in gloom. Somehow, she felt vaguely and pathetically that the storm which had ended their happy laughter also foretold the unfortunate fate of her friends.
Suddenly, she heard Raphael, slightly tipsily, murmuring behind her, "Will compassion destroy us?"
Edith turned to him in surprise. In the thick darkness, his pale and pinched figure looked mournful and lonely.
"Quenet was right. Neither side can truly accept me. Raphael Saint-Clemont is nothing more than the bat in Aesop''s Fables, neither birds nor beasts willing to acknowledge me!"
"You don''t have to think like that, Raphael. I think Citizen Desmoulins is right. Our hearts have been disturbed too much by this rain. How childish! When the rain stops and the sky clears, everything will be alright." She tugged at the corner of her mouth, the words spoken with a hint of uncertainty.
Raphael walked over to her, gazing together with her at the tempest that had engulfed the whole world. "I''m not as naive as Camille Desmoulins. Will Terror really end automatically by the power of charity? I have a premonition that it will only drag us all towards perdition!"
"Don''t say such things, Raphael." The ominous sense of fatality in his words caught hold of her heart in an instant. Edith''s emotions surged like the rainstorm outside, and tears at once welled up in her eyes.
He reached out and held her hand, his voice ethereal and touching as he murmured, "Love, can this also be a sin?"
Edith was at a loss as Raphael took her hand, bent to press a deep kiss