nd said,
'Are you not aware my cousin was killed in battle, M. Rateau?' he
assured her it was no such thing; for that M. Eugene had called there
shortly before on his way to her house. Rateau must have taken somebody
else for him, of course; but I suppose she believed it, for she returned
directly.' 'Rateau told her that he had seen M. Eugene?' said I. 'So
Robert says; but Didier, the mason, says she was ill before she went,
and that it was the rats in the closet that frightened her.' 'Rats!'
said I, sitting up in my bed and staring at him wildly. 'What
rats?--what closet?' 'Some closet in her bed-room,' said he. 'The count
sent for Didier to wall it up directly.' 'To wall it up?--wall up the
closet?' I gasped out. 'Yes, build and plaster it up. But what's the
matter, Rosina? Oh, I shouldn't have told you the countess was ill!' he
cried out, terrified at the agitation I was in. 'Leave me, in the name
of God!' I screamed, 'and send my mother to me!'

"I remember nothing after this, madame, for a long, long time. When my
mother came, she found me in my night-clothes, tying the sheets together
in order to get out of the window, though the door was wide open; but I
was quite delirious. Weeks passed before I was in a state to remember or
comprehend any thing. Before I recovered my senses, my poor mistress and
her baby were in the grave, my master gone away, nobody knew whither,
the servants all discharged, and the accursed house shut up. Not long
afterward the news came that the count had died in Paris."

"But, Rosina,' said I, 'are you sure that M. de Beaugency was in that
closet? How do you know the count had not first released him?"

"Ah, madame," she replied, ominously shaking her palsied head, "you
would not ask that question if you had known Ruy Gonzalez as I did. The
moment the words were out of Philippe's mouth I saw it all. It was just
like him--just the revenge for that stern and inflexible spirit to take.
Besides, madame, when all was over, and he durst speak, Didier the mason
told me that nothing should ever convince him that there was not some
living thing in that closet at the time he walled it up, though who or
what it could be he never could imagine."

"And do you think, Rosina," said I, "do you think the countess ever
suspected the secret of that dreadful closet?"

"Ay did she, madame," answered she; "and it was that which killed her;
for when my mistress came back so unexpectedly, the count was closeted