[The Long Night by Stanley Weyman]@TWC D-Link bookThe Long Night CHAPTER IX 25/29
That they will burn me in the Bourg du Four presently, as they burned the girl in Aix last year! As they burned the woman in Besancon not many months since; I have seen those who saw it. As they did to two women in Zurich--my mother was there! As they did to five hundred people in Geneva in my grandfather's time.
It is that," she continued, a strange wild light in her eyes, "that you think they will do to me ?" "God forbid!" he cried. "Nay, you may do it, too, if you choose," she answered, gravely regarding him.
"But I do not think you will, for you are young, almost as young as I am, and, having done it, you would have many years to live and think.
You would remember in those years that it was my mother who nursed your father, that it was you who came to us not we to you, that it was you who promised to aid us, not I who sought your aid! You would remember all these things of a morning when you awoke early: and this--that in the end you gave me up to the law and burned me." "God forbid!" he cried, and hid his face with his hands.
The very quietness of her speech set an edge on horror.
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