“A moment,” cried the prisoner, as the three laid hands upon him.  “Just a moment.”  They took no notice.  “Monsieur Rufin,” he cried, “it is my hand I offer you—­only that.”

Somebody near Rufin spoke a brief order and the three were still.  He saw Giaconi’s intent face across their shoulders, his open hand reaching forward between them.  He clasped it silently.

The priest had set the girl on her knees before the improvised altar and stood beside her in silence.  The three, with no word spoken, proceeded with their business.  With deft speed they lashed their man’s hands behind his back, forcing them back with rough skill.  The chief of them motioned his subordinates to take him by the elbows and signed to the priest with his hand.  The priest came forward, holding the crucifix, and took his place close to the prisoner.  For a final touch of the grotesque the executioner produced and put on a tall silk hat.

“March!” he said, and they took the condemned man toward the door.  He twisted his head round for a last glance at the room.

“Good-bye, little one!” he cried loudly.  The kneeling girl only moaned.

“Good-bye, M’sieur Rufin.”

Rufin stepped forward and bowed mechanically.

“Adieu, Maitre,” he answered.

He saw that the condemned man’s eyes lightened, a flush rose in his face; he smiled as if in triumph.  Then they passed out, and Rufin, after standing for a moment in uncertainty, crossed the room and knelt beside the girl, with his hands pressed to his ears.

VIII

“Parisienne”

“At least,” said the Comtesse, still staring at the brisk fire in the steel grate—­“at least he saw them with his own eyes.”

She was thinking aloud, and Elsie Gray, her distant relative and close companion, only looked up without reply.  The Comtesse’s face stood in profile against the bright appointments of the fireplace, delicate and serene; the tall salon, with its white panels gleaming discreetly in the light of the candles, made a chaste frame for her fragile presence.  The window-curtains had been drawn to shut out the evening which shed its damp melancholy over the Faubourg, and to the girl the great, still room seemed like a stage set for a drama.  She sat on a stool beside the Comtesse’s chair, her fingers busy with many-colored skeins of silk, and the soft stir of the fire and the tick of a little clock worked themselves into her patient thoughts.

“He was to come at nine, I think,” said the Comtesse at last, without turning her head.

“Yes,” said Elsie, leaning forward to look at the little clock.  “It still wants twenty minutes.”

The Comtesse nodded slowly; all her gestures had the gentle deliberation of things done ceremonially.

“It is not much longer to wait, is it?” she said.  “After twenty years, one should be patient.  But to think!  To-night, for the first time I hear of Jeanne from one who saw her at the end.  Not a lawyer who has sought out the tale and rearranged it, but one who knew.  You see, Elsie?”