"Go with him."
Then uttering a cry of pain by which great sufferers return to life:
"Ah! I was so happy," said Henriette; "I was almost dead."
Meanwhile Marguerite had thrown a velvet cloak over her bare shoulders.
"Come," said she, "we will go and see them once more."
Telling Gillonne to have all the doors closed, the queen gave orders for a litter to be brought to the private entrance, and taking Henriette by the arm, she descended by the secret corridor, signing to Caboche to follow.
At the lower door was the litter; at the gate Caboche's attendant waited with a lantern. Marguerite's porters were trusty men, deaf and dumb, more to be depended on than if they had been beasts of burden.
They walked for about ten minutes, preceded by Caboche and his servant, carrying the lantern. Then they stopped. The hangman opened the door, while his man went ahead.
Marguerite stepped from the litter and helped out the Duchesse de Nevers. In the deep grief which bound them together it was the nervous organism which was the stronger.
The headsman's tower rose before them like a dark, vague giant, giving out a lurid gleam from two narrow upper windows.