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. in the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the bastille captive removed him from all other men. he was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a spirit moving among mortals.