The town was thronged, and the market suspended; but Gertrude had seen scarcely a soul.  Having kept her room till the hour of the appointment, she had proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided the open space below the cliff where the spectators had gathered; but she could, even now, hear the multitudinous babble of their voices, out of which rose at intervals the hoarse croak of a single voice uttering the words, ’Last dying speech and confession!’ There had been no reprieve, and the execution was over; but the crowd still waited to see the body taken down.

Soon the persistent girl heard a trampling overhead, then a hand beckoned to her, and, following directions, she went out and crossed the inner paved court beyond the gatehouse, her knees trembling so that she could scarcely walk.  One of her arms was out of its sleeve, and only covered by her shawl.

On the spot at which she had now arrived were two trestles, and before she could think of their purpose she heard heavy feet descending stairs somewhere at her back.  Turn her head she would not, or could not, and, rigid in this position, she was conscious of a rough coffin passing her shoulder, borne by four men.  It was open, and in it lay the body of a young man, wearing the smockfrock of a rustic, and fustian breeches.  The corpse had been thrown into the coffin so hastily that the skirt of the smockfrock was hanging over.  The burden was temporarily deposited on the trestles.

By this time the young woman’s state was such that a gray mist seemed to float before her eyes, on account of which, and the veil she wore, she could scarcely discern anything:  it was as though she had nearly died, but was held up by a sort of galvanism.

‘Now!’ said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that the word had been addressed to her.

By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at the same time hearing persons approaching behind her.  She bared her poor curst arm; and Davies, uncovering the face of the corpse, took Gertrude’s hand, and held it so that her arm lay across the dead man’s neck, upon a line the colour of an unripe blackberry, which surrounded it.

Gertrude shrieked:  ‘the turn o’ the blood,’ predicted by the conjuror, had taken place.  But at that moment a second shriek rent the air of the enclosure:  it was not Gertrude’s, and its effect upon her was to make her start round.

Immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brook, her face drawn, and her eyes red with weeping.  Behind Rhoda stood Gertrude’s own husband; his countenance lined, his eyes dim, but without a tear.

‘D-n you! what are you doing here?’ he said hoarsely.

‘Hussy—­to come between us and our child now!’ cried Rhoda.  ’This is the meaning of what Satan showed me in the vision!  You are like her at last!’ And clutching the bare arm of the younger woman, she pulled her unresistingly back against the wall.  Immediately Brook had loosened her hold the fragile young Gertrude slid down against the feet of her husband.  When he lifted her up she was unconscious.