She lay back in the carriage in the torpor which overtakes a criminal on the eve of his execution.

To her eyes all nature was shrouded in a seething vapor; even common things assumed fantastic shapes.

The one thought, "If I do not succeed they will kill themselves," fell upon her soul with reiterated blows, as the bar of the executioner fell upon the victim's members when tortured on the wheel.

She felt herself breaking; she lost her energy in this terrible waiting for the cruel moment, short and decisive, when she should find herself face to face with that man on whom the fate of the condemned depended.

She chose to yield to her depression rather than waste her strength uselessly.