“You are not a priest!” cried the executioner. “What, then, are you?”

“I am about to tell you, wretched man.”

“Oh, mon Dieu!”

“I am John Francis de Winter.”

“I do not know you,” said the executioner.

“Wait, wait; you are going to know me. I am John Francis de Winter,” he repeated, “and that woman — — ”

“Well, that woman?”

“Was my mother!”

The executioner uttered the first cry, that terrible cry which had been first heard.