“ Where is the physician?” asked Charmolue.
“ Here,” replied a black gown whom she had not before noticed.
She shuddered.
“ Mademoiselle,” resumed the caressing voice of the procucrator of the Ecclesiastical court, “for the third time, do you persist in denying the deeds of which you are accused?”
This time she could only make a sign with her head.
“ You persist?” said Jacques Charmolue. “Then it grieves me deeply, but I must fulfil my office.”
“ Monsieur le Procureur du Roi,” said Pierrat abruptly, “How shall we begin?”
Charmolue hesitated for a moment with the ambiguous grimace of a poet in search of a rhyme.
“ With the boot,” he said at last.
The unfortunate girl felt herself so utterly abandoned by God and men, that her head fell upon her breast like an inert thing which
