On arriving there, he turned to her,—
"For the last time, will you be mine?"
She replied with emphasis,—
"No."
Then he cried in a loud voice,—
"Gudule! Gudule! here is the gypsy! take your vengeance!"
The young girl felt herself seized suddenly by the elbow. She looked. A fleshless arm was stretched from an opening in the wall, and held her like a hand of iron.
"Hold her well," said the priest; "'tis the gypsy escaped. Release her not. I will go in search of the sergeants. You shall see her hanged."
A gutteral laugh replied from the interior of the wall to these bloody words:—"Hah! hah! hah!"—The gypsy watched the priest retire in the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame. A cavalcade was heard in that direction.
The young girl had recognized the spiteful recluse. Panting with terror, she tried to disengage herself. She writhed, she made many starts of agony and despair, but the other held her with incredible strength. The lean and bony fingers which bruised her, clenched on her flesh and met around it. One would have said that this hand was riveted to her arm. It was more than a chain, more than a fetter, more than a ring of iron, it was a living pair of pincers endowed with intelligence, which emerged from the wall.
She fell back against the wall exhausted, and then the fear of death took possession of her. She thought of the beauty of life, of youth, of the view of heaven, the aspects of nature, of her love for Phœbus, of all that was vanishing and all that was approaching, of the priest who was denouncing her, of the headsman who was to come, of the gallows which was there. Then she felt terror mount to the very roots of her hair and she heard the mocking laugh of the recluse, saying to her in a very low tone: "Hah! hah! hah! you are going to be hanged!"
She turned a dying look towards the window, and she beheld the fierce face of the sacked nun through the bars.
