A cry from the maniacal lips interrupted him--a hoarse cry such as an Animal in pain, an animal that had been struck suddenly and unawares, might utter. "Douglas! Douglas! Douglas!" he shrieked. "Douglas! Douglas!" and so continued muttering that name again and again. Then, with another sound, half wail, half sigh, he flung himself back on his bed, and thus spent his last night on earth. Yet, even on that night, through the whole of which he chattered unintelligible words to himself, he laughed once or twice convulsively, and as though suffocating with suppressed mirth. * * * * * * * As the shadows of the night departed and the morning gave signs of breaking, with still the snow-flakes mingling with the rain that beat against the windows of the towers, they came for him--the King's Lieutenant, accompanied by four of the _corps de garde_. "Put on your cloak, if you have one," that officer said to the miserable creature shrinking back to the wall, while he shivered all over and uttered his broken cries--"put on your cloak, and come." "In pity leave him!" exclaimed Bertie; "in the name of Christianity, of humanity, refrain from taking so miserable a life as this! Vile as he has been, see, see what he is now! It is as though you took the life of a helpless child, of a dumb brute. As you hope for mercy, show some." "I am but an instrument," said the Lieutenant; "I have my orders; willingly or unwillingly I must obey them. And if I would spare him, nay, if my master the King would spare him, the Church would not. He is in their grip; it will be unfastened an hour hence, when he is dead." Then, turning to the soldiers, he said, "Bring him away." They took the shaking wretch--no longer a man but only a living thing--by the arms and led him moaning to the door; yet, when he had arrived there, he had the strength to wrench one of them free; and looking round at Bertie for the last time in the world, and with his starting, scintillating eyes fixed on him, he raised that arm, the hand clenched as though grasping a weapon, and--once--twice--struck downward fiercely with it. Then he was gone for ever. CHAPTER XXVI. KATE LEARNS SHE IS FREE. A great masked ball was over at the opera house; the candles were burning down into their sockets in the girandoles and lustres; the May morning, which under ordinary circumstances should have broken so soft and bright, had dawned foul, rainy, and snowy; and carriages, hackney coaches, and sedan chairs were pushing their way up to the doors of the theatre and carrying off their employers to their houses and beds.