"Oh, my darling George," retorted Andrea, in the same low tone, "I trust that you at least know now that I loved you the best!"
The queen went back on the way to her prison, leaving Andrea with the remains of her husband, on which a pale moonbeam fell through a small grated window, like the gaze of a friend.
Without knowing who she was, Pitou conducted Marie Antoinette, and saw her safely lodged. Relieved of his responsibility toward the soldier on guard, he went out on the terrace to see if the squad he had asked of Maniquet had arrived. The four were waiting.
"Come in," said Pitou.
Using the torch which he had taken from the queen's hands, he led his men to the room where Andrea was still gazing on her husband's white but still handsome face in the moonshine. The torch-light made her look up.
"What do you want?" she challenged of the Guards, as though she thought they came to rob her of the dead.
"My lady," said Pitou, "we come to carry the body of Count Charny to his house in Coq-Heron Street."
"Will you swear to me that it is purely for that?" Andrea asked.
Pitou held out his hand over the dead body with a dignity of which he might be believed incapable.
"Then I owe you apology, and I will pray God," said Andrea, "in my last moments, to spare you and yours such woe as He hath afflicted me with."