“Jacques was free now. He had told Morin how fruitless his efforts at persuasion had been; and, scarcely caring to note the effect of his information upon the man, he had devoted himself to watching Monsieur and Mademoiselle de Créquy. And now he followed them to the Place de la Grève. He saw them mount the platform; saw them kneel down together till plucked up by the impatient officials; could see that she was urging some request to the executioner; the end of which seemed to be, that Clément advanced first to the guillotine, was executed (and just at this moment there was a stir among the crowd, as of a man pressing forward towards the scaffold). Then she, standing with her face to the guillotine, slowly made the sign of the cross, and knelt down. “Jacques covered his eyes, blinded with tears. The report of a pistol made him look up. She was gone--another victim in her place--and where there had been the little stir in the crowd not five minutes before, some men were carrying off a dead body. A man had shot himself, they said. Pierre told me who that man was.” CHAPTER IX. After a pause, I ventured to ask what became of Madame de Créquy, Clément’s mother. “She never made any inquiry about him again,” said my lady. “She must have known that he was dead; though how, we never could tell. Medlicott remembered afterwards that it was about, if not on--Medlicott to this day declares that it was on the very Monday, June the nineteenth, when her son was executed, that Madame de Créquy left off her rouge, and took to her bed, as one bereaved and hopeless. It certainly was about that time; and Medlicott--who was deeply impressed by that dream of Madame de Créquy’s (the relation of which I told you had had such an effect on my lord), in which she had seen the figure of Virginie--as the only light object amid much surrounding darkness as of night, smiling and beckoning Clément on--on--till at length the bright phantom stopped, motionless, and Madame de Créquy’s eyes began to penetrate the murky darkness, and to see closing around her the gloomy dripping walls which she had once seen and never forgotten--the walls of the vault of the chapel of the De Créquys in Saint Germain l’Auxerrois; and there the two last of the Créquys laid them down among their forefathers, and Madame de Créquy had wakened to the sound of the great door, which led to the open air, being locked upon her--I say Medlicott, who was predisposed by this dream to look out for the supernatural, always declared that Madame de Créquy was made conscious, in some mysterious way, of her son’s death, on the very day and hour when it occurred, and that after that she had no more anxiety, but was only conscious of a kind of stupefying despair.” “And what became of her, my lady?” asked I, repeating my question.