"I am for it, for one!" screamed a girl not over twenty, whose golden hair hung down over her back, and whose tones and glances proclaimed her to be already far sunken in dissipation. "I have never yet seen a man done to death; and as for the wheel, why, I have prayed often for a chance of seeing it. They say the _coup de grâce_ is magnificent if the--the patient--is still sensible. Now, in our old village, before the young lord brought me to town, we never saw anything but a beggar in the stocks. And, _dame! les ceps_ cease to be interesting after one has pelted the occupiers for half an hour." "Pretty things," said the arquebusier, looking down sardonically on her, "have a care, _ma chère_, that you never come to worse than _les ceps_ yourself. I have known many country girls brought to town by their young lords, and--hem!--who got worse shift than the stocks when they were discarded." "_Ah! voyons!_" exclaimed the girl, "_avec ça!_ Look you, my figure of fun, you are insolent. Get you home to your wife and family, and earn bread for them. We of the fashion desire none of your _banalités_." Yet, as she spoke, she was being inducted into her long cloak by some of her would-be admirers, and also many others were getting ready. For Paris had not had an execution for some two months now, and the "half-tiger, half-monkey nature" which Voltaire attributed to his countrymen was thirsty for its favourite form of entertainment. In the ball-room itself there sat, however, a group very different from those in the vestibule, who, since the masquerades were open to all who could pay for admission, had attended the ball. This group consisted of Sir Charles and Lady Ames--once Lady Belrose--and Kate, who, in spite of her melancholy and her ill-health, had been persuaded to accompany them. Heaven knows such diversions were little enough in her way now! yet Lady Ames had been kind to her when she needed kindness, and, at the express desire of Sir Charles and his wife, she had consented to go with them. In one way she was not unhappy: she knew, she felt certain, that this second disappearance of Bertie Elphinston from the knowledge of the world was not of his own accord. That something terrible had happened she could not doubt; yet she knew also that, whatever that something might be, it was not due to any desire to hide himself from her--that was, if he was still alive. But was he?