ure of entreaty.

"You'll not let them hang me, Ranulph--you'll save me," he whimpered.

"Don't be afraid, they shall not hang you," Ranulph replied quietly, and
began warming his hands at the fire. "You'll swear it, Ranulph--on the
Bible?"

"I've told you they shall not hang you. You ought to know by now whether
I mean what I say," his son answered more sharply.

Assuredly Ranulph meant that his father should not be hanged. Whatever
the law was, whatever wrong the old man had done, it had been atoned
for; the price had been paid by both. He himself had drunk the cup of
shame to the dregs, but now he would not swallow the dregs. An iron
determination entered into him. He had endured all that he would endure
from man. He had set out to defend Olivier Delagarde from the worst that
might happen, and he was ready to do so to the bitter end. His scheme
of justice might not be that of the Royal Court, but he would defend it
with his life. He had suddenly grown hard--and dangerous.

CHAPTER XXXII

The Royal Court was sitting late. Candles had been brought to light
the long desk or dais where sat the Bailly in his great chair, and the
twelve scarlet-robed jurats. The Attorney-General stood at his desk,
mechanically scanning the indictment read against prisoners charged with
capital crimes. His work was over, and according to his lights he had
done it well. Not even the Undertaker's Apprentice could have been less
sensitive to the struggles of humanity under the heel of fate and death.
A plaintive complacency, a little righteous austerity, and an agreeable
expression of hunger made the Attorney-General a figure in godly
contrast to the prisoner awaiting his doom in the iron cage opposite.

There was a singular stillness in this sombre Royal Court, where only
a tallow candle or two and a dim lanthorn near the door filled the
room with flickering shadows-great heads upon the wall drawing close
together, and vast lips murmuring awful secrets. Low whisperings came
through the dusk like mournful nightwinds carrying tales of awe through
a heavy forest. Once in the long silence a figure rose up silently, and
stealing across the room to a door near the jury box, tapped upon it
with a pencil. A moment's pause, the door opened slightly, and another
shadowy figure appeared, whispered, and vanished. Then the first figure
closed the door again silently, and came and spoke softly up to the
Bailly, who yawned in his hand, sat back