iolent push.

With a last glance up and down the passage, illuminated for a moment by
his electric torch, the stranger made sure that there was no one about
to see him; then, with silent tread, he began to go downstairs....

Half-way down, his accomplice awaited him.

"Well, master?" questioned Jules in a low, trembling voice.

In a calm, quiet voice, the man in the hood mask replied:

"It is done--is successful.... I have wedged the door to. You will be
careful when you are sweeping to-morrow."

Jules lowered his head.

"Yes ... yes.... Have you?..."

The stranger put his hand on the servant's shoulder.

"Listen," whispered the stranger, "I do not repeat my orders twenty
times over,... have I not already told you that I do not allow myself to
be questioned?... try to remember that!... You wish to know whether I
have killed her?... Well, I will tell you this: I have not killed her.
But I have so managed things that she will kill herself!... A suicide,
you understand.... One piece of advice: to-morrow, keep anyone from
going to her room as long as you can ... if Madame Bourrat, or anyone
else asks for her, you must say that you saw her leave the house--that
she has gone out...."

"But," protested Jules, "it is impossible, what you tell me to say,
master! It just happens that she is expecting visitors to-morrow!... She
told me that, on this account, she meant to stay indoors all day!"

The man with the hood mask ground his teeth.

"You idiot! What does that matter?... You are to say: Mademoiselle
Elizabeth has just gone out, but she told me that she was not going far,
and that she would return in about twenty minutes.... If anyone should
ask for her again, you are to answer that she has not come in yet!..."

"But ... master ... when they find out what's happened really?..."

"Ho! When it is discovered, it will seem quite natural that a person who
means to commit suicide--for she will have committed suicide, you
understand--should have taken precautions not to be disturbed ... you
grasp this?"

"Yes, master ... yes!..."

They had returned to the garden: the man in the hooded mask was
preparing to get over the gate....

"Farewell! Be faithful! Be intelligent!... You know what you have to
gain?... You also know what risks you run?... Eh!... Now go!"

"You will return to-morrow, master?"

The man with the hooded mask looked his accomplice up and down.

"I shall return when it pleases me to do so."

T