Maurice seized the weapon with a joyful expression.
"No," said he, "she would suffer too much," and he returned the knife to Lorin.
"You are right," said Lorin; "long live Monsieur Guillotine! Why, what is it, after all? A fillip on the neck, according to Danton. And what signifies a fillip?"
And he flung his knife in the midst of a group of the condemned, one of whom immediately seized and buried it in his breast. He was dead in an instant.
At the same moment Geneviève awoke, and uttered a piercing cry. She felt the pressure of the executioner's hand upon her shoulder.
LONG LIVE SIMON!
At the sound of this cry Maurice understood that the struggle was about to commence. The influence of love may be able to exalt the soul to heroism,—it may, against natural instinct, impel a human being to desire death, but it had not in this instance extinguished the repugnance to pain. It was evident that Geneviève resigned herself the more patiently to death since Maurice was to die with her; but resignation does not exclude suffering, and to quit this world is not only to fall into the abyss termed unknown, but also to suffer in the descent.