LA ROCHE.
Make it brief, but answer.
PAUL.
In the death-cart I found a priest confessing those about him. He questioned me, soon saw that I was not the Duke. "My child," he said, "I die to-day, but as a priest shall be the last to mount the scaffold.—Let me take your place, assume the same disguise, while you slip from the cart and live." At first I refused, as I no longer cared for life! But when he said Diane might not escape unless I lived to aid her, I yielded.—The night was cloudy. When the moon was hidden, the priest put on my coat and wig, and as the death-cart neared the scaffold, I slipped through its slatted floor, and in the darkness mingled with the crowd.
LA ROCHE.
Who was the holy man who set you free?
PAUL.
The Abbé de St. Simon.
LA ROCHE.
Strange! We heard the Abbé had escaped.