"Come, I
will awaken you! I have told you my story; it is now for you to give me
a recipe for my inflamed eyes."
"Here it is," earnestly answered Lestocq, handing to the princess the
paper upon which he had been scribbling.
Elizabeth took it and at first regarded it with smiling curiosity;
but her features gradually assumed a more serious and even terrified
expression, and the roses faded from her cheeks.
"You call this a recipe for eyes reddened with weeping," said she, with
a shudder, "and yet it presents two pictures which make my hair bristle
with terror, and might cause one to weep himself blind!"
"They represent our future!" said Lestocq, with decision. "You see that
man bound upon the wheel--that is myself! Now look at the second. This
young woman who is wringing her hands, and whose head one of these nuns
is shearing, while the other is endeavoring, in spite of her struggling
resistance, to envelope her in that black veil;--that is you, princess.
For you the cloister, for me the wheel! That will be our future,
Princess Elizabeth, if you now hesitate in your forward march in the
path upon which you have once entered.
"And to persevere in this conspiracy is to give ourselves up to certain
destruction, for doubt not they will be able to convict us.
Pages:
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150