e!"

CHAPTER II

In order to explain the scream, it will be necessary to go back to the
morning of the day on which this conversation took place. St Malo was
looking its dingiest. A heavy rain had fallen during the night, and a
mist clung to the muddy streets and grey walls till nearly noon. The
little town, with its narrow thoroughfares and towering houses, was as
gloomy as a city of the dead; foul odours rose on all sides, and would
have been unbearable but for the cool breeze which swept in from the
Channel, driving the mists and fog before it.

In one of the highest and most substantial houses two young women sat at
the casement of an upper window. The house was a gloomy one, without
adornment of any kind except an arched porch, over which was chiselled
some motto, or emblem, that had become undecipherable from age. The room
where the two girls sat was plain in its appointments, and badly
lighted, though its sombreness was relieved by numerous feminine trifles
scattered about, betraying the character and tastes of its occupants.

The elder of the two was Marguerite de Roberval, niece of the nobleman
from Picardy to whom reference has already been made. She was about
twenty-four, dark, and very beautiful, with masses of black hair
crowning a well-set head, finely-cut features, and a figure which, even
as she sat on the low window-seat, showed tall and willowy. Her beauty
would have been flawless but for one defect--her chin was a shade too
prominent, giving her face an expression of determination, which, while
destroying its symmetry, told of a strong will, and a firmness amounting
almost to obstinacy. She had the lithe grace of a panther, and though
her repose was perfect, a close observer might have noticed a nervous
tension in her attitude and bearing that told of a hidden force and
energy resolutely controlled.

At her feet, on a wide-spreading rug, sat her friend and companion,
Marie de Vignan--in many ways her exact opposite. Not so dark as
Marguerite, nor quite so tall, with a face inclined to be more round
than oval, bright, well-opened eyes, and a merry, laughing mouth, her
plump figure and vivacious expression bespoke a happy, contented nature,
on whom the world and life sat lightly. She had come from Picardy with
Marguerite, and was, indeed, the ward of De Roberval. Her father had
been killed by a bursting petronel a few years before, and had left his
only child to the charge of his friend and