“And it is very quickly over,” added the lady.
“Who are you?” asked Madame du Barry stupidly.
The lady mentioned a great name, the name of a friend of the Queen, the name of a woman who had quietly ignored the favourite at Versailles.
“Yes, I remember you,” muttered the Countess and shrank away.
The other woman touched her shoulder. “Madame has behaved like a person of quality,” she said gently. “Madame will die as such—”
At this a little blood crept into the poor prisoner’s face; she caught at the kind hand on her shoulder.
“Yes, yes,” she answered pitifully, “I will try to behave well.”
“Are you afraid?” asked the young man.
She looked up at him and thought that his face was beyond doubt horribly distorted now, like a wet clay mask pulled awry by clumsy fingers.
“I am very much afraid–I can’t believe it—” Her voice trailed off; she turned her eyes to the woman the other side of her. In that white, calm face was that same dragged look of distortion. Madame du Barry did not know that her own features were now almost unrecognisable through the contraction of terror and anticipation of death.