The next day she was on the scaffold, looking down indifferently, contented to end the fatigue of surfeited disgust.
Louison laughed aloud.
"Why do you laugh?" her neighbor said. "What has she done to you?"
"I do not laugh at her," she answered impatiently. "I laughed because I told her I would go first."
Her companion edged away. The tricoteuses, stopping their needles, counted:
"Forty-eight!"
At that moment Louison beheld Dossonville on the outskirts of the crowd. Seizing the girl nearest to her, a child of fifteen, by the shoulder, she cried, with a furious gesture:
"Jeanneton, do you see that fellow over there? He thinks I can't see him, the fool! As though I cared!"
The child struggled to free herself, but Louison, without relaxing her hold, transferred her look to the scaffold. Twice again the murmur rose: