nce--have perhaps evaded even his
three men--have escaped--been free--but how! By treachery
unparalleled, by murder and deceit! And, afterward, a life of reproach
and self-contempt. No! better this--better that wheel below than such
a freedom!"

Looking down now at the crowd, his attention was called to it by a
slight stir in its midst; he saw a troop of dragoons ride in to the
_place_ and observed them distributing themselves all round it at
equal distance under the orders of an officer. Also he saw that a lane
was made to the platform where the wheel stood--a lane among the
people that ended at the platform and began he knew at the door of the
Hotel de Ville beneath him, from which he would be led forth.

"Courage," he whispered to himself, "courage. It will not be long;
they say the first blow sometimes brings insensibility, and after that
there is no more. Only death--death! Death with my little child's name
upon my lips--that name the last word I shall ever speak; my last
thoughts a prayer for her."

Gradually now he let himself sink to the floor, his manacles almost
preventing him from doing so, and when in a kneeling position he
buried his head in his iron-bound hands and prayed long and fervently.

"O God," he murmured, "thou who hast in thy wisdom torn her from me,
keep and guard her ever, I beseech thee, in this my darkest hour; let
her never know her father's sorrow, nor share the adversity thou hast
thought fit to visit upon him. And, since I may never gaze on her face
again, see her whom I have so dearly loved, so mourned for, never hear
the tones of her voice, be thou her earthly as her heavenly Father;
sleeping and waking, oh, watch over her still!"

Then, because the thoughts of her were more than he could bear, and
because he knew that the child whom he had loved so dearly--the child
whose future life he had once sworn solemnly to her dying mother
should be dearer to him than his own--would never know his fate nor
his regrets, he buried his head once more in those manacled hands and
wailed: "My child! my child! My little lost child! Oh, my child! my
child!"

"If I could only know," he murmured, later, "that you were well,
happy--feel sure, as that woman told me once herself, and Boussac
thought--that whoever has you in his keeping was not cruel to you, my
little, helpless child, the end might be easier. If I could only know!
O Dorine! Dorine!"

Looking up, as he strove with his two hands, so ti