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 Marie Antoinette fainting, supported by her ladies; poor fat Louis by the window looking literally sick.

“What’s the matter with them all?” said Edward.

“Look at the window,” said Vincent.

There was a window to the room. Outside was sunshine—the sunshine of 1792—and, gleaming in it, blonde hair flowing, red mouth half open, what seemed the just-severed head of a beautiful woman. It was raised on a pike, so that it seemed to be looking in at the window.

“I say!” said Edward, and the head on the pike seemed to sway before his eyes.

“Madame de Lamballe. Good thing, isn’t it?” said Vincent.

“It’s altogether too much of a good thing,” said Edward. “Look here—I’ve had enough of this.”

“Oh, you must just see the s,” said Vincent; “nothing bloody, you know. Only Early Christians being married and baptized, and all that.”

He led the way, down some clumsy steps to the cellars which the genius of a great artist has transformed into the exact semblance of the old Catacombs at Rome. The same