"I might have been stopped at the gate of the Louvre, and compelled to raise my cloak. What would they have said if they had seen a head under it?"

"That is right; keep it. I will come for it to-morrow."

"To-morrow, madame," said Caboche, "may perhaps be too late."

"How so?"

"Because the queen mother wanted the heads of the first victims executed by me to be kept for her magical experiments."

"Oh! What profanation! The heads of our well-beloved! Henriette," cried Marguerite, turning to her friend, who had risen as if a spring had placed her on her feet, "Henriette, my angel, do you hear what this man says?"

"Yes; what must we do?"

"Go with him."

Then uttering a cry of pain by which great sufferers return to life:

"Ah! I was so happy," said Henriette; "I was almost dead."

Meanwhile Marguerite had thrown a velvet cloak over her bare shoulders.

"Come," said she, "we will go and see them once more."

Telling Gillonne to have all the doors closed, the queen gave orders for a litter to be brought to the private entrance, and taking Henriette by the arm, she descended by the secret corridor, signing to Caboche to follow.

At the lower door was the litter; at the gate Caboche's attendant waited with a lantern. Marguerite's porters were trusty men, deaf and dumb, more to be depended on than if they had been beasts of burden.

They walked for about ten minutes, preceded by Caboche and his servant, carrying the lantern. Then they stopped. The hangman opened the door, while his man went ahead.

Marguerite stepped from the litter and helped out the d.u.c.h.esse de Nevers. In the deep grief which bound them together it was the nervous organism which was the stronger.

The headsman's tower rose before them like a dark, vague giant, giving out a lurid gleam from two narrow upper windows.

The attendant reappeared at the door.

"You can enter, ladies," said Caboche; "every one is asleep in the tower."

At the same moment the light from above was extinguished.

The two women, holding to each other, pa.s.sed through the small gothic door, and reached a dark hall with damp and uneven pavement. At the end of a winding corridor they perceived a light and guided by the gruesome master of the place they set out towards it. The door closed behind them.

Caboche, a wax torch in hand, admitted them into a lower room filled with smoke. In the centre was a table containing the remains of a supper for three. These three were probably the hangman, his wife, and his chief a.s.sistant. In a conspicuous place on the wall a parchment was nailed, sealed with the seal of the King. It was the hangman's license.

In a corner was a long-handled sword. This was the flaming sword of justice.

Here and there were various rough drawings representing martyrs undergoing the torture.

At the door Caboche made a low bow.

"Your majesty will excuse me," said he, "if I ventured to enter the Louvre and bring you here. But it was the last wish of the gentleman, so that I felt I"--

"You did well, Maitre," said Marguerite, "and here is a reward for you."

Caboche looked sadly at the large purse which Marguerite laid on the table.

"Gold!" said he; "always gold! Alas! madame, if I only could buy back for gold the blood I was forced to spill to-day!"

"Maitre," said Marguerite, looking around with a sad hesitation, "Maitre, do we have to go to some other room? I do not see"--

"No, madame, they are here; but it is a sad sight, and one which I could have spared you by wrapping up in my cloak that for which you have come."

Marguerite and Henriette looked at each other.

"No," said the queen, who had read in her friend's eye the same thought as in her own; "no, show us the way and we will follow."

Caboche took the torch and opened an oaken door at the top of a short stairway, which led to an underground chamber. At that instant a current of air blew some sparks from the torch and brought to the princesses an ill-smelling odor of dampness and blood. Henriette, white as an alabaster statue, leaned on the arm of her less agitated friend; but at the first step she swayed.

"I can never do it," said she.

"When one loves truly, Henriette," replied the queen, "one loves beyond death."

It was a sight both horrible and touching presented by the two women, glowing with youth, beauty, and jewels, as they bent their heads beneath the foul, chalky ceiling, the weaker leaning on the stronger, the stronger clinging to the arm of the hangman.

They reached the final step. On the floor of the cellar lay two human forms covered with a wide cloth of black serge.

Caboche raised a corner of it, and, lowering the torch:

"See, madame," said he.

In their black clothes lay the two young men, side by side, in the strange symmetry of death. Their heads had been placed close to their bodies, from which they seemed to be separated only by a bright red circle about the neck. Death had not disunited their hands, for either from chance or the kind care of the hangman the right hand of La Mole rested in Coconnas's left hand.

There was a look of love under the lids of La Mole, and a smile of scorn under those of Coconnas.

Marguerite knelt down by the side of her lover, and with hands that sparkled with gems gently raised the head she had so greatly loved.

The d.u.c.h.esse de Nevers leaned against the wall, unable to remove her eyes from that pale face on which so often she had gazed for pleasure and for love.

"La Mole! Dear La Mole!" murmured Marguerite.

"Annibal! Annibal!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess, "so beautiful! so proud! so brave! Never again will you answer me!"

And her eyes filled with tears.

This woman, so scornful, so intrepid, so insolent in happiness; this woman who carried scepticism as far as absolute doubt, pa.s.sion to the point of cruelty; this woman had never thought of death.

Marguerite was the first to move.

She put into a bag, embroidered with pearls and perfumed with finest essences, the head of La Mole, more beautiful than ever as it rested against the velvet and the gold, and the beauty of which was to be preserved by a special preparation, used at that time in the embalming of royal personages.