arn
her?"

"She is asleep, perhaps," replied the abbe; "you stay with your horse,
my boy, and I will go and wake her."

Certainly he did not feel the slightest disquietude. All was calm and
still; a bright light was shining through the windows of the second
story.

Still, when he saw the open door, a vague presentiment of evil stirred
his heart.

"What can this mean?" he thought.

There was no light in the lower rooms, and the abbe was obliged to feel
for the staircase with his hands. At last he found it and went up. But
upon the threshold of the chamber he paused, petrified with horror by
the spectacle before him.

Poor Marie-Anne was lying on the floor. Her eyes, which were wide open,
were covered with a white film; her black and swollen tongue was hanging
from her mouth.

"Dead!" faltered the priest, "dead!"

But this could not be. The abbe conquered his weakness, and approaching
the poor girl, he took her hand.

It was icy cold; the arm was rigid as iron.

"Poisoned!" he murmured; "poisoned with arsenic."

He rose to his feet, and cast a bewildered glance around the room. His
eyes fell upon his medicine-chest, open upon the table.

He rushed to it and unhesitatingly took out a vial, uncorked it, and
inverted it on the palm of his hand--it was empty.

"I was not mistaken!" he exclaimed.

But he had no time to lose in conjectures.

The first thing to be done was to induce the baron to return to the
farm-house without telling him the terrible misfortune which had
occurred.

To find a pretext was easy enough.

The priest hastened back to the wagon, and with well-affected calmness
told the baron that it would be impossible for him to take up his abode
at the Borderie at present, that several suspicious-looking characters
had been seen prowling about, and that they must be more prudent than
ever, now they could rely upon the kindly intervention of Martial de
Sairmeuse.

At last, but not without considerable reluctance, the baron yielded.

"You desire it, cure," he sighed, "so I obey. Come, Poignot, my boy,
take me back to your father's house."

Mme. d'Escorval took a seat in the cart beside her husband; the priest
watched them as they drove away, and not until the sound of their
carriage-wheels had died away in the distance did he venture to go back
to the Borderie.

He was ascending the stairs when he heard moans that seemed to issue
from the chamber of death. The sound sent all his blood wi