But a glance from the Marquis bade him resume, and resume he did, as though there had been no interruption.
"What is this ?" demanded Bellecour, half amused, half vexed, whilst a sudden new light leapt to the eyes of La Boulaye, which but a moment back had been so full of agony.
But Mademoiselle never paused to answer her father.

Seeing the executioner proceeding, despite her call to cease, she sprang upon him, caught him by the arms and wrested the whip from hands that dared not resist her.
"Did I not bid you stop ?" she blazed, her face white, her eyes on fire; and raising the whip she brought it down upon his head and shoulders, not once but half-a-dozen times in quick succession, until he fled, howling, to the other side of the horse trough for shelter.

"It stings you, does it" she cried, whilst the Marquis, from angered that at first he had been, now burst into a laugh at her fury and at this turning of tables upon the executioner.

She made shift to pursue the fellow to his place of refuge, but coming of a sudden upon the ghastly sight presented by La Boulaye's lacerated back, she drew back in horror.

Then, mastering herself--for girl though she was, her courage was of a high order--she turned to her father.
"Give this man to me, Monsieur," she begged.
"To you!" he exclaimed.