e chalice and its
position from the eye of the watching girl.

She heard the whine of his voice pattering the Latin of the mass, which
he was reciting backwards from the last gospel; and occasionally
she heard responses muttered by her mother, who with Mademoiselle
Desceillets was beyond Marguerite's narrow range of vision.

Apart from the interest lent to the proceedings by the presence of
the royal favourite the affair must have seemed now very stupid and
pointless to Marguerite, although she would certainly not have found it
so had she known enough Latin to understand the horrible perversion
of the Credo. But when the Offertory was reached, matters suddenly
quickened. In stealing away from the door, she was no more than in time
to avoid being caught spying by her mother, who now issued from the
chapel.

La Voisin crossed the ante-room briskly and went out.

Within a very few minutes she was back again, her approach now heralded
by the feeble, quavering squeals of a very young child.

Marguerite Monvoisin was sufficiently acquainted with the ghastly rites
to guess what was impending. She was young, and herself a mother.
She had her share of the maternal instinct alive in every female
animal--with the occasional exception of the human pervert--and the
hoarse, plaintive cries of that young child chilled her to the soul with
horror. She felt the skin roughening and tightening upon her body, and a
sense of physical sickness overcame her. That and the fear of her mother
kept her stiff and frozen in an angle of the settle until La Voisin had
passed through and reentered the chapel bearing that piteous bundle in
her arms.

Then, when the door had closed again, the girl, horrified and
fascinated, sped back to watch. She saw that unclean priest turn and
receive the child from La Voisin. As it changed hands its cries were
stilled.

Guibourg faced the altar once more, that little wisp of humanity that
was but a few days old held now aloft, naked, in his criminal hands.
His muttering, slobbering voice pronouncing the words of that demoniac
consecration reached the ears of the petrified girl at the keyhole.

"Ashtaroth, Asmodeus, Princes of Affection, I conjure you to acknowledge
the sacrifice I offer to you of this child for the things I ask of
you, which are that the King's love for me shall be continued, and that
honoured by princes and princesses nothing shall be denied me of all
that I may ask."

A sudden gust of