eze which precedes a storm.

Marguerite rushed towards La Mole, and caught him in her arms.

La Mole uttered a piercing shriek, like one of the cries Coconnas had
heard in his dungeon and which had so terrified him.

"My God! What is the matter, La Mole?" cried Marguerite, springing back
in fright.

La Mole uttered a deep moan and raised his hands to his eyes as though
to hide Marguerite from his sight.

The queen was more terrified at the silence and this gesture than she
had been at the shriek.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "what is the matter? You are covered with blood."

Coconnas, who had rushed to the altar for the dagger, and who was
already holding Henriette in his arms, now came back.

"Rise," said Marguerite, "rise, I beg you! You see the time has come."

A hopelessly sad smile passed over the white lips of La Mole, who seemed
almost unequal to the effort.

"Beloved queen!" said the young man, "you counted without Catharine, and
consequently without a crime. I underwent the torture, my bones are
broken, my whole body is nothing but a wound, and the effort I make now
to press my lips to your forehead causes me pain worse than death."

Pale and trembling, La Mole touched his lips to the queen's brow.

"The rack!" cried Coconnas, "I, too, suffered it, but did not the
executioner do for you what he did for me?"

Coconnas related everything.

"Ah!" said La Mole, "I see; you gave him your hand the day of our visit;
I forgot that all men are brothers, and was proud. God has punished me
for it!"

La Mole clasped his hands.

Coconnas and the women exchanged a glance of indescribable terror.

"Come," said the jailer, who until then had stood at the door to keep
watch, and had now returned, "do not waste time, dear Monsieur de
Coconnas; give me my thrust of the dagger, and do it in a way worthy of
a gentleman, for they are coming."

Marguerite knelt down before La Mole, as if she were one of the marble
figures on a tomb, near the image of the one buried in it.

"Come, my friend," said Coconnas, "I am strong, I will carry you, I will
put you on your horse, or even hold you in front of me, if you cannot
sit in the saddle; but let us start. You hear what this good man says;
it is a question of life and death."

La Mole made a superhuman struggle, a final effort.

"Yes," said he, "it is a question of life or death."

And he strove to rise.

Annibal took him by the arm and raised him. During the process La