ed her hands as if asking him to speak.

"Do you remember that evening, Marguerite, when in exchange for the life
I then offered you, and which to-day I lay down for you, you made me a
sacred promise."

Marguerite gave a start.

"Ah! you do remember," said La Mole, "for you shudder."

"Yes, yes, I remember, and on my soul, Hyacinthe, I will keep that
promise."

Marguerite raised her hand towards the altar, as if calling God a second
time to witness her oath.

La Mole's face lighted up as if the vaulted roof of the chapel had
opened and a heavenly ray had fallen on him.

"They are coming!" said the jailer.

Marguerite uttered a cry, and rushed to La Mole, but the fear of
increasing his agony made her pause trembling before him.

Henriette pressed her lips to Coconnas's brow, and said to him:

"My Annibal, I understand, and I am proud of you. I well know that your
heroism makes you die, and for that heroism I love you. Before God I
will always love you more than all else, and what Marguerite has sworn
to do for La Mole, although I know not what it is, I swear I will do for
you also."

And she held out her hand to Marguerite.

"Ah! thank you," said Coconnas; "that is the way to speak."

"Before you leave me, my queen," said La Mole, "one last favor. Give me
some last souvenir, that I may kiss it as I mount the scaffold."

"Ah! yes, yes," cried Marguerite; "here!"

And she unfastened from her neck a small gold reliquary suspended from a
chain of the same metal.

"Here," said she, "is a holy relic which I have worn from childhood. My
mother put it around my neck when I was very little and she still loved
me. It was given me by my uncle, Pope Clement and has never left me.
Take it! take it!"

La Mole took it, and kissed it passionately.

"They are at the door," said the jailer; "flee, ladies, flee!"

The two women rushed behind the altar and disappeared.

At the same moment the priest entered.

CHAPTER LX.

THE PLACE SAINT JEAN EN GREVE.

It was seven o'clock in the morning, and a noisy crowd was waiting in
the squares, the streets, and on the quays. At six o'clock a tumbril,
the same in which after their duel the two friends had been conveyed
half dead to the Louvre, had started from Vincennes and slowly crossed
the Rue Saint Antoine. Along its route the spectators, so huddled
together that they crushed one another, seemed like statues with fixed
eyes and open mouths.

This day there w