“The gug-gug—”

“Gallows?”

She nodded.

“You are but a weak girl,” said I, meditating.

“Aye: but there’s a dozen troopers on the landing below.”

“Then, my dear, you must lock me up,” I decided gloomily, and fell to whistling——

“Vivre en tout cas, C’est le grand soulas—”

A workman’s hammer in the court below chim’d in, beating out the tune, and driving the moral home. I heard a low sob behind me. The jailer’s daughter was going.

“Lend me your bodkin, my dear, for a memento.”

She pull’d it out and gave it to me.