"By our Lady! you are a fine fellow," said he, leaning down to speak in his ear. "I like a brave man. Enter my service, you shall be happy and rich, my favors will heal your bruised limbs; I will ask you to do nothing cowardly, like rejoining your own party to betray their plans; there are always plenty of traitors, and the proof is to be found in the prisons of Blois. Only tell me on what terms are the Queen-mother and the Prince de Condé." "I know nothing about it, monseigneur," cried Lecamus. The doctor came in, examined the victim, and pronounced that he could bear the eighth wedge. "Drive it in," said the Cardinal. "After all, as the Queen says, he is only a heretic," he added, with a hideous smile at Christophe. Catherine herself slowly came in from the adjoining room, stood in front of Christophe, and gazed at him coldly. She was the object of attentive scrutiny to the two brothers, who looked alternately at the Queen-mother and her accomplice. The whole future life of this ambitious woman depended on this solemn scrutiny; she felt the greatest admiration for Christophe's courage, and she looked at him sternly; she hated the Guises, and she smiled upon them. "Come," said she, "young man, confess that you saw the Prince de Condé; you will be well rewarded." "Oh, madame, what a part you are playing!" cried Christophe, in pity for her. The Queen started. "He is insulting me! Is he not to be hanged?" said she to the two brothers, who stood lost in thought. "What a woman!" cried the Grand Master, who was consulting his brother in the window recess. "I will stay in France and be revenged," thought the Queen. "Proceed, he must confess or let him die!" she exclaimed, addressing Monsieur de Montrésor. The provost turned away, the executioners were busy, Catherine had an opportunity of giving the martyr a look, which no one else saw, and which fell like dew on Christophe. The great Queen's eyes seemed to glisten with moisture; they were, in fact, full of tears, two tears at once repressed and dry. The wedge was driven home, one of the boards between which it was inserted split. Christophe uttered a piercing cry; then his face became radiant; he thought he was dying. "Let him die," said the Cardinal, echoing Queen Catherine's words with a sort of irony. "No, no," he added to the provost, "do not let us lose this clue." The Duke and the Cardinal held a consultation in a low voice. "What is to be done with him?" asked the executioner. "Send him to prison at Orleans," said the Duke.--"And, above all," he said to Monsieur de Montrésor, "do not hang him without orders from me." The excessive sensitiveness of every internal organ, strung to the highest pitch by the endurance which worked upon every nerve in his frame, no less affected every sense in Christophe. He alone heard these words spoken by the Duc de Guise in the Cardinal's ear: "I have not given up all hope of hearing the truth from this little man."