the heavens. The moon shone out with its
clear cold light, silvering the broad, hedgeless, poplar-fringed plains,
and shining through the window of the carriage upon the crouching figure
and her terrible companion. He leaned back now, his arms folded upon
his chest, his eyes gloating upon the abject misery of the woman who had
wronged him.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked at last.

"To Portillac, my little wifie."

"And why there? What would you do to me?"

"I would silence that little lying tongue forever. It shall deceive no
more men."

"You would murder me?"

"If you call it that."

"You have a stone for a heart."

"My other was given to a woman."

"Oh, my sins are indeed punished."

"Rest assured that they will be."

"Can I do nothing to atone?"

"I will see that you atone."

"You have a sword by your side, Maurice. Why do you not kill me, then,
if you are so bitter against me? Why do you not pass it through my
heart?"

"Rest assured that I would have done so had I not an excellent reason."

"Why, then?"

"I will tell you. At Portillac I have the right of the high justice,
the middle, and the low. I am seigneur there, and can try, condemn, and
execute. It is my lawful privilege. This pitiful king will not even
know how to avenge you, for the right is mine, and he cannot gainsay it
without making an enemy of every seigneur in France."

He opened his mouth again and laughed at his own device, while she,
shivering in every limb, turned away from his cruel face and glowing
eyes, and buried her face in her hands. Once more she prayed God to
forgive her for her poor sinful life. So they whirled through the night
behind the clattering horses, the husband and the wife, saying nothing,
but with hatred and fear raging in their hearts, until a brazier fire
shone down upon them from the angle of a keep, and the shadow of the
huge pile loomed vaguely up in front of them in the darkness. It was
the Castle of Portillac.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE SCAFFOLD OF PORTILLAC.

And thus it was that Amory de Catinat and Amos Green saw from their
dungeon window the midnight carriage which discharged its prisoner
before their eyes. Hence, too, came that ominous planking and that
strange procession in the early morning. And thus it also happened that
they found themselves looking down upon Francoise de Montespan as she
was led to her death, and that they heard that last piteous cry for aid
at th