La Mole was gloomy and pale; his head reclined agains the marble wall, and his black hair, bathed with profuse per spiration, which gave to his countenance the paleness of ivory seemed to have preserved the form it had assumed after having been stiffened on his head with the pain.

On a signal from the turnkey, the two valets went to seek the priest whom Coconnas had asked for.

This was the signal agreed upon.

Coconnas followed them with his eyes with anxiety; but his was not the only ardent look fixed on them. Scarcely had they disappeared than two women rushed from behind the altar, and hastened rapidly towards the choir.

Marguerite hurried towards la Mole and seized him in her arms. La Mole uttered a piercing shriek—one of those cries which Coconnas had heard in his dungeon.

"Mon Dieu! what ails thee, dear la Mole?" inquired Marguerite. "Oh, Heaven! you are all blood!"

Coconnas, who had also rushed towards the altar, taken up the dagger, and had his arm round Henriette's waist, turned suddenly.

"Get up," said Marguerite-" get up, I entreat you! You see the moment has arrived."

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A terrible smile of grief passed over la Mole's pale lips, which seemed as though they would never smile again. "Beloved queen!" said the young man, you have calculated without Catherine, and consequently without a crime. I have been put to the torture; my bones are broken, all my body is one wound, and the effort I make at this moment to press my lips upon your forehead causes me agony worse than death."

And as he spake, with great exertion, and ghastly pale, la Mole pressed his lips on the queen's brow.

"Torture!" cried Coconnas-" and so did I undergo it. But the executioner, then, did not do for you what he did for me?" And Coconnas told all.

gave

"Ah!” replied la Mole, " that is easily explained. You him your hand on the day of our visit; I forgot that all men were brothers, and was disdainful. God punishes me for my pride. God be praised!"

La Mole clasped his hands. Coconnas and the two ladies exchanged a look of indescribable horror.

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Come, come," said the jailer, who had been to the door to listen, and had returned-" come along! Do not lose any time, my dear M. de Coconnas. Give me my blow with the dagger, and manage it like a worthy kind gentleman, for they will soon be here."

Marguerite was kneeling beside la Mole, like one of the reclining figures on a monument.

"Come, my dear friend,” said Coconnas- -"courage! I am strong, and will carry you. I can place you on your horse, or hold you on my own, if you could keep yourself erect in the saddle. Come, let us go-let us go! You understand what the good fellow says: our lives are at stake."

La Mole made a superhuman, a sublime effort.

"True," he said, "your life is at stake," and he tried to

rise.

Hannibal placed his arms under him, and raised him up. La Mole, during this time, had only uttered a low moaning; but at the moment when Coconnas let him go, to speak to the turnkey, and when the sufferer was no longer supported but by the arms of two women, his legs bent under him, and in spite of Marguerite's efforts, the tears gushing. from her, he fell like a mass, and the piercing shriek he could no longer repress made the chapel echo through all its gloomy vaults.

I

"You see," said la Mole, in an agony of distress-“you see, my beloved, so leave me-leave me with one last adieu. have not revealed one word, Marguerite. Your secret is enveloped in my love, and will die with me. Adieu, dearest, adieu!"

Marguerite, almost lifeless herself, threw her arms round that dear and beautiful head, and imprinted on his brow a kiss that was almost holy.

“You, Hannibal," said la Mole-"you who have been spared these agonies, who are young and may escape, fly, fly! my dearest friend, and give me the consolation, when dying, to know that you are in safety."

"The hour is passing," exclaimed the jailer. "Come, gentlemen, make haste!"

Henriette endeavoured to lead Hannibal gently away; whilst Marguerite was on her knees before la Mole, her hair dishevelled, and eyes overflowing with tears.

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Fly, Hannibal!" repeated la Mole-"fiy, and do not afford

our enemies the joyful spectacle of the death of two innocent

men.

Coconnas quietly disengaged himself from Henriette, who was leading him to the door, and with a gesture so solemn that it was majestic, said:

"Madame, first give the five hundred crowns we have promised to this man.'

"Here they are," said Henriette.

Then turning towards la Mole and shaking his head sorrowfully, he said:

"As for you, la Mole, you have done me an injury, by thinking for one moment that I would quit you. Have I not sworn to live and die with you? But you are so great a sufferer, that I forgive you."

And he seated himself with a resolute air near his friend, towards whom he leaned his head, and whose forehead he touched with his lips.

Then he drew gently, gently as a mother would a child, the head of his dear friend towards him, until it glides from the wall, and reposed itself calmly on his breast.

Marguerite was gloomy: she had picked up the poniard which Coconnas had let fall.

"Oh, my beloved one!” cried la Mole, extending his hands as he comprehended her purpose, "do not forget that I die in order to destroy the slightest suspicion of our love.”

"What, then, can I do for you," exclaimed Marguerite, in despair, "if I must not die with you?"

"You may,” replied la Mole-" you may render my death sweet, and so that I may in a manner meet it with a smile." Marguerite clasped her hands, and looked inquiringly at

him.

"Do you remember the evening, Marguerite, when in exchange for the life I offered you then, and to-day lay down for you, you made me a sacred promise?"

Marguerite started.

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Ah, you do remember!" said la Mole, "for you shudder "Yes, yes, I remember," said Marguerite; and on my

soul, Hyacinthe, I will keep that promise."

Marguerite extended her hand towards the altar, as if a second time to call on God to witness her oath.

La Mole's face lighted up as if the vaulted roof of the chapel had opened.

"They are coming!" exclaimed the jailer.

Marguerite uttered a cry, and hastened towards la Mole, but for fear of increasing his agony, she paused all trembling before him.

Henriette pressed her lips on Coconnas' brow, and said to him

"Dearest Hannibal, I understand you, and I am proud of you. I know the heroism that makes you die, and I love you for that heroism. Before God, I will always love you more than anything living; and what Marguerite has sworn to do for la Mole (although I know not what it is) I will also do for you."

And she held out her hand to Marguerite.

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"Well said: now Heaven be with you!" replied Coconnas. "Before you leave me, dearest," said la Mole, one last favour; give me some last souvenir, that I may kiss it as I mount the scaffold."

"Ah, yes," cried Marguerite, "here, take this!"-and she untied from her neck a small reliquary of gold, fastened to a chain of the same metal.

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'Here," she said, "is a holy relic which I have worn from my childhood: mother put my it round my neck when I was very little and she still loved me. It was given by our uncle, pope Clement, and has never quitted me. Take it!"

La Mole took it, and kissed it eagerly.

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They are opening the door," said the jailer. "Fly, ladies, fly!"

The two women hastened behind the altar, and disappeared at the moment the priest entered.

CHAPTER LX.

THE PLACE SAINT-JEAN EN GREVE.

It was seven o'clock in the morning, and the crowd was waiting, dense and riotous, in the squares, the streets, and the quays.

At six o'clock in the morning a tumbril, the same in which

the two friends after their duel had been conveyed half dead to the Louvre, had quitted Vincennes, crossed the Rue SaintAntoine slowly, and on its route, the spectators, so huddied together that they crushed one another, seemed like statues, with their eyes fixed and their mouths open in wonder

ment.

There was this day a heart-rending spectacle offered by the queen-mother to all the people of Paris.

In the tumbril we have mentioned as making its slow way from Vincennes, were lying on some straw two young men, bareheaded and entirely clothed in black, leaning against each other. Coconnas supported on his knees la Mole, whose head hung over the sides of the tumbril, and whose eyes wandered vaguely around him.

The crowd, eager to stare with greedy gaze even to the bottom of the vehicle, pressed, drove, heaved, lifted itself upon stones, clung to angles of the walls, and appeared satisfied when it contrived to gain a look at the two bodies which were going from suffering to destruction.

It was rumoured that la Mole would die without having confessed one of the charges imputed to him; whilst, on the contrary, Coconnas, it was asserted, could not endure the torture, and had disclosed everything.

So there were cries on all sides

"Look at the red-haired one! It was he who confessed! It was he who owned everything! He is the coward who caused the death of the other, who is a brave fellow, and would not confess anything!"

The two young men perfectly understood this-the one the praises, and the other the reproaches, which accompanied their funeral march; and whilst la Mole pressed the hands of his friend, a sublime expression of disdain overspread the features of the Piedmontese, who from the foul tumbril gazed on the stupid mob as if he were looking down from a triumphal car.

Misfortune had done its heavenly work-had ennobled the countenance of Coconnas, as death was about to render divine his soul.

"Are we nearly there?" asked la Mole; "for I can endure this no longer, my dear friend, and I feel as if I should faint."