“The king wills it.”

Then he bent down to the ear of Rennet Cousin, and said to him in a very low tone, —

“Make an end of it quickly!” Possibly, the redoubtable provost felt his heart also failing him.

The executioner and the sergeants entered the cell. The mother offered no resistance, only she dragged herself towards her daughter and threw herself bodily upon her. The gypsy beheld the soldiers approach. The horror of death reanimated her, —

“Mother!” she shrieked, in a tone of indescribable distress, “Mother! they are coming! defend me!”

“Yes, my love, I am defending you!” replied the mother, in a dying voice;