They came forth together from a small door in the wall of the _Hôtel de Ville_, side by side, these two who were to suffer; one--he who was to perish on the wheel--being nearly naked, and having on him nothing but a short pair of breeches reaching to his knees and a sleeveless singlet. He was a great, bull-chested man, with massive limbs that would have become a gladiator, and, as he strode along attended by a confessor with a crucifix in his hand, he seemed to the mob to appear like one who would suffer severely. Therefore they roared and shrieked at him, and some waved handkerchiefs and clapped and cried, while he regarded them almost with contempt. Yet there was a glance in his eyes as if he could not comprehend why all these people, whom he saw through the falling flakes, should be thus fantastically dressed and should also be masked. In truth it was a weird scene in the Place de Grève that morning, with the condemned men approaching the scaffold through the snow, and with, for the greater part of the spectators, these women, through the holes of whose masks their eyes glittered, and whose grotesque costumes were but little suited either to the occasion or the wintry morning. Yet still there was the other doomed one. He, however, approached the platform very differently from the manner in which the man whose portion was the wheel came forward. He, too, had by his side a confessor with a crucifix--after each there walked the executioners, and also the officials--and it seemed as if he would shelter himself behind the robes of the priest. Yet sometimes, too, he smiled and gibbered at the crowd as though it was composed of his friends, and only when he saw the masked faces of the women and all the quaint garbs of the onlookers did he seem astonished. At his appearance the crowd appeared startled, the shouts died down; instead of them a whisper ran through their ranks. "He is mad! _Il est fou!_" they cried, and again some women fainted. "Great God!" muttered Sir Charles Ames hoarsely, catching sight of him. Then, suddenly, he said: "Kate--Lady Fordingbridge--do not look out; for pity's sake do not!" And to his wife he made signs that she should prevent her friend from glancing at the scaffold. But he was too late! Already she had done so; already she, peering from the window of the coach, her own face masked, had seen the face of the trembling, grinning wretch; and, since gradually the coachman had edged the carriage through the crowd until it was not now ten paces from the platform, he, too, saw her--the woman with her face disguised--glaring at him. She herself was nearly fainting at this time, yet she could see the headsman grasp his axe and motion to the victim to kneel down and place his head upon the block, and in her agony she raised her hand to her brow. In doing so it struck and loosened the mask, so that it fell off, leaving her face exposed. And then the crowd's enjoyment culminated!