of the execution which followed.

The Place de Greve was surrounded by an entire regiment, keeping back
the crowd, who soon, remastered by overpowering curiosity, struggled for
standing room and strained their necks to see. A conspicuous platform
had been erected in front of the Hotel de Ville. Caron was the first to
suffer. At the order of the executioner he was caught hold of by two
assistants, thrown down, and bound to a large St. Andrew's cross of
plank which lay on the platform. The black-robed confessor knelt down at
his head and held up the crucifix before him, at the same time hiding
his own face by his book and the sleeve of his gown. The executioner
adjusted his wig elegantly, took up and minutely examined his crowbar,
and casting first a coxcomb look at the breathless spectators, brought
the bar into the air with a flourish, and down with a crash on the right
thigh of the poor prisoner. The agonising cry of the helpless man was
drowned in a tremendous outburst of applause from the crowd. When he had
been disposed of in each of his four limbs, Bec was treated in the same
manner. Then the assistants, seizing Hugues, threw him on the cross,
bound him, and the executioner lifted his bar in the air----

CHAPTER XVII

THE SAVING OF LA TOUR

Jude, who had the instincts of a Spanish Dominican, kept the closest
watch upon the judicial proceedings against the highwaymen. He was
promptly at the Chatelet at the time of their brief and summary trial,
and procuring a _caleche_, sped Versaillesward to retail the news to the
Noailles household. Having done so with considerable _eclat_ to her
Excellency, he pictured to himself an entrancing dream--that of awaking
a joyful sympathy between himself and Cyrene through this highly
congratulatory matter. She would smile upon him so divinely, so highly
applaud his zeal, and begin to compare him favourably with that new
butterfly, Repentigny, whose day must thenceforth come to an end.

It was night before he discovered her whereabouts, for she was at a
ball, accompanying the Marechale de Noailles, chief lady of honour of
the Queen. The Marechale was just then occupying the suite of apartments
allotted to her in the Palace, and there Jude waited impatiently until
half-past three before the young widow arrived in her boudoir
accompanied by her maid.

"You did not expect me here, Madame Baroness," he said.

"In truth I did not, sir," she replied with cold surprise.

"