“Yes,” the little Maid went on.  She had lost all fear in the very act of speech.  “Yes, and Maud, she is going to marry Sholto—­and they will be very happy, for they love each other so.  I know it, for she told me to-night just before you sent for us to come to your feast.  That was kind of you to remember us, though it was past bed-time.  But now, good marshal, you will send us back, will you not?  Now, look kind to-night.  You will be glad afterwards that you were good to two maids who never harmed you, but are ready to love you if you prove kind to them.”

“Hush, Margaret,” said Maud Lindesay.  “It is useless to speak such words to such a man.”

The Marshal de Retz turned sharply to her.

“Ah,” he said, with a curious bite in his speech, “then, my young lady, you would not love me, even if I were to let you go!”

“I should hate and abominate you for ever and ever, even if you helped me into Paradise!” quoth Maud Lindesay, giving him defiance in a full eye-volley.

“So,” he said calmly, “I am indeed likely to help you into Paradise this very night.  That is, unless Saint Peter of the Keys makes up his mind that so outspoken and tricksome a maid had best take a few thousand years of purgatory—­as it were on her way upwards, en passant.”

A sudden lowering passion at this point altered his countenance.

“No,” he thundered, standing up erect from the pillar against which he had been leaning, and his whole voice and bearing changing past description, “it is enough—­listen!  I will be brief with you.  I have brought both of you here that you may die.  I cannot expect of you that you will understand or appreciate my motives, which are indeed above the knowledge of children.  This is a temple to a Great God, and he demands the sacrifice of the noblest and most innocent blood.  I do you the honour to believe that it is here to my hand.  Also, your deaths will cause a number of people both in Scotland and elsewhere to sit easier in their seats.  Lastly, I had sworn that you should die if your friends from Scotland came to trouble me.  They have come, and Gilles de Retz keeps his word—­as doth the Master whom he serveth!”

He bowed in the direction of the vast shadowy figure, which to Laurence’s eye appeared to turn towards his niche with a leer, as if to say, “Listen to him.  What a fool he is!”

The maids stood silent, not comprehending aught save that they were to die.  Then suddenly Gilles de Retz cried out in his loudest military tones—­“Henriet, Poitou, De Sille, bind these maidens upon the iron altar, that Barran-Sathanas may feed his eyes on their beauty and rejoice!”

And as they stood motionless upon the square of white marble, the servitors came forward and led them to the great altar of iron.  They lifted the maidens up and laid their bodies crosswise upon the vast grid, the bars of which were as thick as a man’s arm, arranging them so that their heads hung without support over the bar next the shadowy image.