Even Athos looked at him with as much stupefaction as the others, for he knew not how he could in any way be mixed up with the horrible drama which was at that moment coming to its climax.

After approaching milady with a slow and solemn step, so that the table alone separated them, the unknown took off his mask.

Milady for some time examined with increasing terror his pale face, framed in its black hair and beard, and the only expression of which was icy sternness. Then all at once,

“Oh no, no!” cried she, rising and retreating to the very wall; “no, no! it is an infernal apparition! It is not he! Help, help!” she screamed in a hoarse voice, turning to the wall as if she could tear an opening in it with her hands.

“But who are you, then?” cried all the witnesses of this scene.

“Ask this woman,” said the man in the red cloak, “for you see well enough she knows me!”

“The executioner of Lille! the executioner of Lille!” cried milady, a prey to wild terror, and clinging with her hands to the wall to avoid falling.

Everyone drew back, and the man in the red cloak remained standing alone in the middle of the room.

“Oh, forgive me, pardon, pardon!” cried the wretched woman, falling on her knees.

The unknown waited for silence.

“I told you so—that she knew me,” he went on to say. “Yes, I am the executioner of the city of Lille, and here is my story.”

All eyes were fixed upon this man; his words were awaited with anxious eagerness.

“This young woman when she was a young maiden was as beautiful as she is now. She was a nun in the convent of the Benedictines of Templemar. A young priest, of a simple and believing heart, was the chaplain of that convent. She undertook to seduce him, and succeeded; she would have seduced a saint.

“The vows of both were sacred—irrevocable. Their intrigue could not last long without ruining both. She prevailed on him to leave the country; but for them to leave the country, to escape together, to reach another part of France, where they might live at ease because there they would be unknown, money was necessary. Neither of them had any. The priest stole the sacred utensils and sold them. But as they were preparing to escape together, they were both arrested.

“Within a week she seduced the jailor’s son and escaped. The young priest was condemned to ten years in chains, and to be branded. I was executioner of the city of Lille, as this woman has said. I was obliged to brand the guilty man; and the guilty man, gentlemen, was my brother!

“I then swore that this woman who had ruined him, who was more than his accomplice, since she had spurred him on to commit the crime, should share at least his punishment. I suspected the place where she was concealed. I followed her, I caught her, I bound her, and I imprinted the same disgraceful mark on her that I had imprinted on my poor brother.

“The day after my return to Lille, my brother in his turn succeeded in making his escape. I was accused of complicity, and was condemned to stay in prison in his place till he should be again a prisoner. My poor brother was ignorant of my condemnation. He had rejoined his woman. They fled together into Berry, and there he obtained a little curacy. This woman passed for his sister.