The woman stood by to-day and watched it done. The perquisite was a valuable one, and on the previous day she had been much annoyed by the careless cutting which had ruined a magnificent head of auburn hair. To-day she had noted that one of the women had a valuable crop, and she was instant in her directions for its cutting. Presently she pushed past Dangeau and lifted the lid of a basket which hung against the wall. His glance followed her idly, and saw that the basket was piled high with human hair. The woman muttered to herself as her eye rested on the ruined auburn locks. Then she took to-day’s spoil, tress by tress, from her apron, knotting the hair roughly together, and dropping it into the open basket. Dangeau watched her with a curious sick sensation. The contrast between the woman’s unsexed face and the pitiful relics she handled affected him disagreeably, but beyond this he experienced a strange, tingling sensation unlike anything in his recollection. The auburn hair was hidden now by a bunch of gay black curls. A long, straight, flaxen mass fell next, and then a thick waving tress, gold in the light, and brown in the shade, catching the sun that crossed it for a moment, as Aline’s hair had always done. He shuddered through all his frame, and turned away. Thank God, thank God she was safe at Rancy! And with that a sudden movement parted the crowd at the other side of the room, and he looked across and saw her. He had heard of visions in the hour of death, but as he gazed, a cold sweat broke upon his brow, and he knew it was she herself, Aline, his wife, cast for death as he was cast. Her profile was towards him, cut sharply against the blackened wall. Her face was lifted. Her eyes dwelt on the patch of sky which an open window gave to view. How changed, O God, how changed she was! How visibly upon the threshold. The beauty had fallen away from her face, leaving it a mere frail mask, but out of her eyes looked a spirit serenely touched with immortality. It is the look worn only by those who are about to die, and look past death into the Presence. It was a look that drove the blood from Dangeau’s heart; a wave of intolerable anger against Fate, of intolerable anguish for the wife so found again, swept it back again. He moved to go to her, and as he did so, saw a man approach and begin to pinion her arms, whilst the opening of a door and the roll of wheels outside proclaimed the arrival of the tumbrils. In the same moment Dangeau accosted the man, his last coin in his hand. "This for you if you will get me into the same cart as this lady, and see, friend, let it be the last one." What desperate relic of spent hope prompted his last words he hardly knew, for after all what miracle could Goyot work? but at least he would have a few more minutes to gaze at Aline before the darkness blotted out her face.