The cool audacity of the widow did not for an instant forsake her; with head erect, and firm, collected manner, she assisted in taking off the strait-waistcoat she had worn, and which had hitherto fettered her movements; this removed, she appeared in an old black stuff dress.
"Where shall I place myself?" asked she, in a clear, steady voice.
"Be good enough to sit down upon one of those chairs," said the executioner, pointing to the seats arranged at the entrance of the dungeon.
With unfaltering step, the widow prepared to follow the directions given her, but as she passed her daughter she said, in a voice that betokened some little emotion:
"Kiss me, my child!"
But as the sound of her mother's voice reached her ear, Calabash seemed suddenly to wake up from her lethargy, she raised her head, and, with a wild and almost frenzied cry, exclaimed:
"Away! Leave me! And if there be a hell, may it receive you!"
"My child," repeated the widow, "let us embrace for the last time!"
"Do not approach me!" cried the distracted girl, violently repulsing her mother; "you have been my ruin in this world and the next!"
"Then forgive me, ere I die!"