ng and catching a likeness, which has been one of my gifts since I
was a girl. You look as if you didn't approve of such employment as this
for a woman who is going to be hanged. Well, sir, I have no doubt you
are right." She paused, and tore up the portrait. "If I have misbehaved
myself," she resumed, "I make amends. To find you in an indulgent frame
of mind is of importance to me just now. I have a favor to ask of you.
May the warder leave the cell for a few minutes?"

Giving the woman permission to withdraw for a while, I waited with some
anxiety to hear what the Prisoner wanted of me.

"I have something to say to you," she proceeded, "on the subject of
executions. The face of a person who is going to be hanged is hidden, as
I have been told, by a white cap drawn over it. Is that true?"

How another man might have felt, in my place, I cannot, of course,
say. To my mind, such a question--on _her_ lips--was too shocking to be
answered in words. I bowed.

"And the body is buried," she went on, "in the prison?"

I could remain silent no longer. "Is there no human feeling left in
you?" I burst out. "What do these horrid questions mean?"

"Don't be angry with me, sir; you shall hear directly. I want to know
first if I am to be buried in the prison?"

I replied as before, by a bow.

"Now," she said, "I may tell you what I mean. In the autumn of last
year I was taken to see some waxworks. Portraits of criminals were
among them. There was one portrait--" She hesitated; her infernal
self-possession failed her at last. The color left her face; she was no
longer able to look at me firmly. "There was one portrait," she resumed,
"that had been taken after the execution. The face was so hideous; it
was swollen to such a size in its frightful deformity--oh, sir, don't
let me be seen in that state, even by the strangers who bury me! Use
your influence--forbid them to take the cap off my face when I am
dead--order them to bury me in it, and I swear to you I'll meet death
tomorrow as coolly as the boldest man that ever mounted the scaffold!"
Before I could stop her, she seized me by the hand, and wrung it with
a furious power that left the mark of her grasp on me, in a bruise, for
days afterward. "Will you do it?" she cried. "You're an honorable man;
you will keep your word. Give me your promise!"

I gave her my promise.

The relief to her tortured spirit expressed itself horribly in a burst
of frantic laughter. "I can't hel