At sight of the horrible machine, which stood before her house, Mademoiselle de Brumpt ordered all the windows in the front closed. When Comte de Brumpt, leaving the prison without guards and on his own parole, arrived within sight of his own house, he found it shut like a sepulchre, with the scaffold before it. He asked himself what it meant and whether he dared go forward. But this hesitation did not last long; neither scaffold nor tomb could hold him back. He walked straight to the door and knocked in his accustomed manner—two blows in quick succession, and a third after a long interval.
Clotilde had retired with Madame Gerard, her companion, to a room in the back of the house overlooking the garden. She was lying among the sofa-cushions and weeping, so ominous did Schneider's answer to her petition seem to her. When she heard the first two strokes of the knocker she uttered a cry, at the third she sprang to her feet.
"My God!" she cried.
Madame Gerard turned pale.
"If your father were not a prisoner," she said, "I would swear that was his knock."
Clotilde darted toward the stairs.
"That is his step," she murmured.
She heard a voice below, asking: "Clotilde, where are you?"
"My father! my father!" cried the young girl, rushing down the stairs.
The count was waiting for her below, and received her in his arms. "My daughter! my daughter!" he murmured, "what does this mean?"
[Pg 77]
"I don't know myself."
"But what is the meaning of this scaffold before the house, and why are all the windows closed?"
"Schneider had the scaffold put up there, and I ordered all the windows closed; I shut them that I might not have to see you die."
"But it was Schneider who opened the door of my prison for me, and let me go on my own recognizance, at the same time inviting himself to dinner to-morrow."
"My father," said Clotilde, "perhaps I did wrong, but you must blame my love for you. When you were arrested I hastened to Strasbourg and asked for your release."
"Of Schneider?"
"Of Schneider."
"Poor child! And at what price did he grant it?"
"Papa, the price is yet to be agreed upon between us. Doubtless, he will tell us the conditions to-morrow."
"We will wait for them."
Clotilde took her prayer-book and went to a little church so humble that it had not been thought necessary to deprive the Lord of it. She prayed there until evening.
The guillotine remained standing all night.
The next day at noon, Schneider presented himself at the Comte de Brumpt's house.
In spite of the advanced season of the year the house was filled with flowers. It would have seemed like a gala day, had not Clotilde's mourning contradicted the impression, as the snow in the street contradicted the spring within.
The count and his daughter receiyed Schneider. He had not taken the name of Euloge for nothing. At the end of ten minutes Clotilde asked herself if this could be the man who had received her so brutally at Strasbourg.
The count, reassured, left the room to attend to some arrangements. Schneider offered his arm to the young girl, and led her to the window, which he opened.
The guillotine stood opposite, gayly decked with flowers and ribbons.
[Pg 78]
"Take your choice," he said, "between a scaffold and the altar."
"What do you mean?" asked Clotilde, trembling.
"To-morrow you must either be my wife or the count must die."
Clotilde blanched to the color of the white cambric handkerchief which she held in her hand.
"My father would prefer to die," she replied.
"And therefore I leave it to you to acquaint him with my request."
"You are right," said Clotilde, "that would be the only way."
Schneider closed the window and led Mademoiselle de Brumpt back to her chair.
Clotilde drew a flask of salts from her pocket and held it to her nose. By a supreme effort of t............