"Ah! madame, but consider. It is terrible!" said the headsman, not altogether unmoved. "You would scarcely support the sight."
"Shew them to me," said the lady.
Taking a lighted torch, the headsman pointed to a door in a corner of the room, dark and humid.
"In there!" he said.
The lady who had not yet spoken broke into an hysterical sob. "I dare not! I dare not! I am terrified!" she cried.
"Who loves should love unto death ... and in death," said she of the imperious voice.
The headsman pushed open the door of a cellar-like apartment, held the torch above his head, and from the black doorway the two ladies gazed in silent horror upon the mutilated spoils of the scaffold. In the red ooze upon the bare stone floor the bodies of La Môle and Coconas lay side by side. The severed heads were almost in their places, a circular black line dividing them from the white shoulders. The first of the two ladies, with heaving bosom, stooped over La Môle, and raised the pale right hand to her lips.
"Poor La Môle! Poor La Môle! I will avenge you!" she murmured.
Then to the executioner: "Give me the head! Here is the double of your gold."
"Ah! madame, I cannot. I dare not! Suppose the Provost——"