"What do you want?"

"To fly! Do you not see that it is me they want?"

"But who are you, then?"

"A woman. Oh, save me! protect me!"

Ernanton turned pale; but generosity triumphed over fear. He placed his
protégée before him, opened a path with blows, and pushed her toward the
corner of the Rue du Mouton, toward an open door. Into this door she
entered; and she seemed to have been expected, for it closed behind her.
Ernanton had not even time to ask her name, or where he should find her
again; but in disappearing she had made a sign full of promise.

Meanwhile, Catherine was standing up in her place, full of rage.

"My son," said she, at last, "you would do well to change your
executioner; he is a leaguer."

"What do you mean, mother?"

"Salcede suffered only one draw, and he is dead."

"Because he was too sensible to pain."

"No; but because he has been strangled with a fine cord underneath the
scaffold, just as he was about to accuse those who let him die. Let a
doctor examine him, and I am certain that he will find round his neck