r footing with the illustrious lawyers, had rudely made
known their opinions.

"I wonder when they're going to execute that spy!... If she were a poor
woman with children and needed to earn their bread, they would have
shot her long ago.... But she is an elegant _cocotte_ and with jewels.
Perhaps she has bewitched some of the cabinet ministers. We are going
to see her on the street now almost any day.... And my son who died at
Verdun!..."

The prisoner, as though divining this public indignation, began to
consider her death very near losing, little by little, that love of
existence which had made her burst forth into lies and delirious
protests. In vain the _maitre_ held out hopes of pardon.

"It is useless: I must die.... I ought to be shot.... I have done so
much mischief.... It horrifies even me to remember all the crimes named
in that sentence.... And there are still others that they don't
know!... Solitude has made me see myself just as I am. What shame!... I
ought to perish; I have ruined everything.... What is there left for me
to do in the world?..."

"And it was then, my dear sir," continued the attorney, in his letter,
"that she spoke to me of you, of the way in which you had known each
other, of the harm which she had done you unconsciously."

Convinced of the uselessness of his efforts to save her life, the
_maitre_ had solicited one last favor of the tribunal. Freya was very
desirous that he should accompany her at the moment of her execution,
as this would maintain her serenity. Those in the government had
promised their colleague in the forum, to send opportune notice that he
might be present at the fulfillment of the sentence.

It was at three o'clock in the morning and while he was in the deepest
sleep that some messengers, sent by the prefecture of police, awakened
him. The execution was to take place at daybreak: this was a decision
reached at the last moment in order that the reporters might learn too
late of the event.

An automobile took him with the messengers to the prison of St. Lazare,
across silent and shadowy Paris. Only a few hooded street lamps were
cutting with their sickly light the darkness of the streets. In the
prison they were joined by other functionaries and many chiefs and
officers who represented military justice. The condemned woman was
still sleeping in her cell, ignorant of what was about to occur.

Those charged with awakening her, gloomy and timid, were marching in