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“The time has come, madame,” said Dixmer. “Listen to me.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“You prefer a death that is useful to your cause, a death that will see you blessed by the whole loyalist party and pitied by a whole people, regardless, to an ignominious death enacted only out of revenge, don’t you?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“I could have killed you on the spot when I found you at your lover’s; but a man who, like me, has sacrificed his life to an honorable and sacred mission has to know how to put his own misfortunes to good use by dedicating them to the cause. This is what I have done, or rather what I count on doing. I have refused, as you see, the pleasure of taking the law into my own hands. I have also spared your lover.”

Something like a smile, fleeting but terrible, flickered over Geneviève’s ashen lips.

“But as for your lover, you know me well enough to know I’ve just been biding my time till I could go one better.”

“Monsieur,” said Geneviève, “I am ready, so why the preamble?”

“You’re ready?”

“Yes, you’re going to kill me. You’re right. I’m waiting.”

Dixmer looked at Geneviève with a jolt of shock in spite of himself. She was sublime at that moment, luminous with the most brilliant glow of all, that comes from love.

“I will go on with my plan,” said Dixmer. “I’ve alerted the Queen, she’s waiting, though she’ll no doubt have a few objections. You’ll have to force her.”

“Fine, monsieur; your wish is my command—just tell me what to do.”

“Shortly,” Dixmer resumed, “I’ll go and knock on the door and Gilbert will open it. With this dagger”—and here Dixmer opened his coat and flashed a double-edged dagger, pulling the blade half out of its sheath—“with this dagger, I will kill him.”

Geneviève shuddered in spite of herself. Dixmer signaled for her to pay attention to what he was saying.

“The moment I stab him, you rush into the back room, the room the Queen’s in. There is no door, you know, just a screen; you change clothes with her while I kill the second soldier. Then I’ll take the Queen’s arm and walk her out through the wicket gate.”

“Very well,” said Geneviève coldly.

“Do you follow?” Dixmer continued. “Every night you’re seen wearing this mantle of black taffeta that hides your face. Put your mantle on Her Majesty and drape it the way you usually drape it on yourself.”

“I’ll do exactly as you say.”

“It now remains for me to forgive you and to thank you, madame,” said Dixmer.

Geneviève shook her head with a chilling smile.

“I don’t need your forgiveness, monsieur, or your thanks,” she said, raising her hand dismissively. “What I am doing, or rather what I am going to do, would erase any crime, and I am guilty of mere weakness. Furthermore, this weakness, if you recall your own conduct, monsieur, was practically forced upon me by you. I removed myself from him, yet you pushed me into his arms. You are the instigator, the judge, and the avenger rolled into one. So it is now up to me to forgive you for my death—and I do forgive you. And it is now up to me to thank you, monsieur, for taking away my life, since that life would have been unbearable separated from the only man I love, particularly once you cut me off from him by your vicious revenge.”

Dixmer dug his nails into his chest; he tried to say something but his voice failed. He circled the office.

“Time is passing,” he said at last. “Every second counts, so let’s get on with it, madame. Are you ready?”

“I’ve said so, monsieur,” Geneviève answered with the calm peculiar to martyrs. “I’m waiting!”

Dixmer gathered all his papers, went to see if the doors were properly shut and to check that no one could get into the office, then began to reiterate the instructions to his wife.

“Save your breath, monsieur,” said Geneviève. “I’m well aware what I have to do.”

“Well then, adieu!”

With that Dixmer held out his hand, as though, at this extreme moment, all recriminations should subside in the face of the momentousness of the situation and the sublimeness