Numb and half unconscious, seeing only, in the third cart, the distant blot of blue, he limped on, following as best he could into the square. He fought his way to the front, beside the cordon of naked swords that girdled the scaffold, repeating to himself a hundred times:
"I must not stay! I will not stay!"
But still the pitiful hope of a deliverance held him there, to snatch at every message of the air that floated over the distracted city. One after another the condemned mounted the steps and passed across the stage like phantoms, hurried on by the remorseless Jacobin, while those about him cried:
"Oh, for two hours—for one!"
"Cursed Henriot, we could have saved them!"
"Why does the Convention delay?"
"Ah, the monster! He is afraid to lose a single one!"
She came at last, a patch of blue, a white face against the stretch of heads. She saw him not at all, nor any one. The maternal instinct of the woman that had raised her above her companions on the journey was gone, and with it all consciousness of the world and the sorrows and the responsibilities which had so transformed her. Only once did she notice her surroundings, when the bourreau, with impatient hand, bared her throat. Then for a moment her hands went instinctively to cover herself from the multitude. Almost immediately her face became grave and reverent. The assistants advanced to take her to the guillotine. Then with a rapid motion she made the sign of the cross, raising her eyes to the deep sky, as though already she saw beyond the grave,—the timid question of a child who hesitates in wonder before the incomprehensible.
With a sob, Dossonville turned, shrinking from the sight of the mutilating knife, and waited with averted face.