My own aged eyes seemed 'enriched' only to look at her!
She adored Eugene, too; any one could see that. At first she spoke
English in 'broken music,' but soon her accent became as perfect as if
she had been native born. How could it have been otherwise, when her
teacher and inspirer was love? She won all hearts with her loveliness!
Humph! hear me, an old fool--worse--an Old Hurricane--betrayed into
discourses of love and beauty merely by the remembrance of Madame Eugene
Le Noir! Ah, bright, exotic flower! she did not bloom long. The bride
had scarcely settled down into the wife when one night Eugene Le Noir
did not come home as usual. The next day his dead body, with a bullet in
his brain, was found in the woods around the Hidden House. The murderer
was never discovered. Gabriel Le Noir came in haste from the military
post where he had been stationed. Madame Eugene was never seen abroad
after the death of her husband. It was reported that she had lost her
reason, a consequence that surprised no one. Eugene having died without
issue, and his young widow being mad, Gabriel, by the terms of his
father's will, stepped at once into the full possession of the whole
property."

"Something of all this I have heard before," said the minister.

"Very likely, for these facts and falsehoods were the common property of
the neighborhood. But what you have not heard before, and what is not
known to any now living, except the criminals, the victims and myself,
is that, three months after the death of her husband, Madame Eugene Le
Noir gave birth to twins--one living, one dead. The dead child was
privately buried; the living one, together with the nurse that was the
sole witness of the birth, was abducted."

"Great heavens! can this be true?" exclaimed the minister, shocked
beyond all power of self-control.

"True as gospel! I have proof enough to carry conviction to any honest
breast--to satisfy any caviller--except a court of justice. You shall
hear. You remember the dying woman whom you dragged me out in the
snow-storm to see--blame you!"

"Yes."

"She was the abducted nurse, escaped and returned. It was to make a
deposition to the facts I am about to relate that she sent you to fetch
me," said Old Hurricane; and with that he commenced and related the
whole dark history of crime comprised in the nurse's dying deposition.
They examined the instrument together, and Old Hurricane again related,
in brief, the incidents of his hur