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The firmness of my tones created some impression upon those feeble minds Indeed, the President went so far as to turn an interrogative glance upon the Count But Chatellerault, supreed his shoulders, and s smile

"Must I really answer such a question, Monsieur le President?" he inquired in a voice and with a manner that clearly implied hoould be his estience if he were, indeed, constrained to do so

"But no, Monsieur le Comte," replied the President with sudden haste, and in scornful rejection of the idea "There is no necessity that you should answer"

"But the question, Monsieur le President!" I thundered, my hand outstretched towards Chatellerault "Ask him--if you have any sense of your duty--ask him am I not Marcel de Bardelys"

"Silence!" blazed the President back at er, you nimble-witted liar!"

My head drooped This coward had, indeed, shattered my last hope

"Some day, monsieur," I said very quietly, "I proratuitous insults shall cost you your position Pray God they do not cost you also your head!"

My words they treated as one ht treat the threats of a child That I should have had the temerity to utter them did but serve finally to decide

With many epithets of opprobriuree, they passed sentence of death uponmyself up for lost and assured that I should be led to the block before h the streets of Toulouse to th upon uards, a man on the threshold of eternity, with hundreds ofat ape upon many another wretch in my position The sun shone with a brilliance that to such eyes as h centuries, and light many another unfortunate to the scaffold The very sky see I deemed the note that everywhere was struck by loomy outlook If you would have food for reflection upon the evanescent quality of life, upon the nothingness of oiset yourselves sentenced to death, and then look around you With such a force was all this borne in uponwas spent I went near to rejoicing that things were as they were, and that I was to die, haply before sunset It was become such a world as did not seem worth a man's while to live in: a world of vainness, of hollowness, of e that I was about to die, that I was about to quit all this, seemed to have torn sonize the worthless quality of what I left Wellmoments, whispered into his soul by a ony of his passing