“Nothing could overstrain me,” said Vivie, “or rather I don’t care if anything kills me.  I will go with him and stay with him, till the very last moment, stay with him till he is buried if you permit!”

She made some hasty toilette, more because she wanted to look a fit companion for him, and not a wretched derelict.  They summoned her, proffering a cup of acorn coffee, which she waved aside.  The bitter cold air of the snowy April morning braced her.  She entered the shuttered, armoured prison taxi in which Bertie and a soldier were placed already.  Bertie had his arms tied, but not too painfully.  He was shivering with the cold, but as he said, “Not afraid, miss.  It’ll come out allright, some’ow.  That Mr. Walcker, ’e done me a lot of good.  At any rate I’ll show how an Englishman can die.  ’Sides ’e says reprieves sometimes comes at the last moment.  They takes a pleasure in tantalizin’ you.  And the doctor put somethin’ in me cup of coffee, sort of keeps me spirits up.”

But for Vivie, that drive was an unforgettable agony.  They went through suburbs where the roads had been unrepaired or torn up by shrapnel.  The snow lay in places so thickly that it nearly stopped the motor.  Still, it came to an end at last.  The door on one side was wrenched open; she was pulled out rather unceremoniously; then, the pinioned Bertie, who was handed over to a guard; and the soldier escort after him, who took his place promptly by his side.  Vivie had just time to note the ugly red-brick exterior of the main building of the Tir National.  It reminded her vaguely of some hastily-constructed Exhibition at Earl’s Court or Olympia.  Then she was pushed inside a swinging door, into a freezing corridor; where the Prison Directeur and Monsieur Walcker were standing—­irresolute, weeping....

“Where is Bertie?” she asked.

“He is being prepared for the shooting party,” they answered.  “It will soon be over ... dear dear lady ... try to be calm—­”

“I will be as calm as you like,” she said, “I will behave with the utmost correctitude or whatever you call it, if you—­if they—­the soldiers—­the officer—­will let me see him—­as you promised—­up to the last, the very last.  But by God—­if there is a God—­if you or they prevent me, I’ll—­”

Inexplicably, sheer mind-force prevailed, without the need for formulating the threat the poor grief-maddened woman might have uttered—­she moved unresisted to a swing door which opened on to a kind of verandah.  Here was drawn up the firing party, and in front of them, fifteen feet away on snow-sodden, trampled grass, stood Bertie.  He caught sight of Vivie passing in, behind the firing party, and standing beyond them at the verandah rail.  He straightened himself; ducked his head aside from the handkerchief with which they were going to bandage his eyes, and shouted “Take away your blasted handkerchief! I ain’t afraid o’ the guns.  If you’ll let me look at HER, I’ll stand as quiet as quiet.”