"She does not think of me," he thought. Then wishing to talk of himself, he said: "It is life that I regret. I ought to have done so much." "I wanted to give you that," she said at last, feeling in the air the approach of the last hour. "I wanted to die for you. That was my dream. You would have revered my memory and I should have been happy." "Why do you say that?" he said, frowning. "And what do you mean?" "I am only an ignorant girl," she said. "I could not long have been your companion." "You are wrong," he cried vehemently, repeating it several times, "and you do me an injustice." She yielded, and asked the question that had been on her lips a dozen times: "Truly, Eugène, you would have married me?" "Can you doubt it, Nicole?" "You are good, very good." She smiled, satisfied to bear this promise away with her, but in her heart she was not quite convinced. "You have been very kind." He was glad at such a moment to own a good action. "Do you know, it's good to have you," he said slowly, a moment awed by the thought of the morrow. "I do not fear, but I am glad you are to be with me." "Yes, I know." All at once she sprang up, trembling from head to foot, crying: "Do you hear?" "The bell?" "It is six." "What! you are trembling?" "Kiss me." She threw herself into his arms, clutching him to her, while he, in bewilderment, said: "But I don't understand." "Hold me, Eugène, hold me!" she cried. "Don't let me go!" She kissed him, holding his head in her hands, and the kiss awakened in him the memory of that first meeting of their lips, in the dark stairway, under the weak torch. He placed his arm about her waist, drawing her gently down the corridor, and believing that her courage at the last had failed her, he whispered as they went: "Do not fear, little one. I am with you. I'll have courage for us both." The prisoners assembled in the great hall, listless and dragging their steps, searching among themselves with anxious or mechanical curiosity, seeking to divine the chosen. Soon from the courtyard rumbled the wheels of the arriving cart. Presently, faint at first, down the distant corridor fell the step of the turnkey, approaching slowly, as though to prolong the cruel suspense. With a crash the gates were flung open, and, flanked by two mastiffs, holding in his hand the fatal roll, the jailer suddenly confronted every eye. Without pause, the monotonous, singing voice opened the long, dreary preamble, finished it, and, rising to a shout, began the list: "The Citoyenne Nicole Barabant!" A sigh of relief escaped the girl, and her head fell on the shoulder of Barabant; but her ears, deaf to the cries of sorrow, to the lamentations of mothers and wives, to the screams of astonishment and despair that woke the silent hall, followed anxiously the roll, counting: "Seven--eight--nine!"