back the sheet that hid the face of the
dead.

He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.

Was this indeed the beautiful, the radiant Marie-Anne, whom he had loved
to his own undoing! He did not recognize her.

He could not recognize these distorted features, this face swollen and
discolored by poison, these eyes which were almost concealed by the
purple swelling around them.

When Jean and the priest entered the room they found him standing with
head thrown back, eyes dilated with terror, and rigid arm extended
toward the corpse.

"Maurice," said the priest, gently, "be calm. Courage!"

He turned with an expression of complete bewilderment upon his features.

"Yes," he faltered, "that is what I need--courage!"

He staggered; they were obliged to support him to an arm-chair.

"Be a man," continued the priest; "where is your energy? To live, is to
suffer."

He listened, but did not seem to comprehend.

"Live!" he murmured, "why should I desire to live since she is dead?"

The dread light of insanity glittered in his dry eyes. The abbe was
alarmed.

"If he does not weep, he will lose his reason!" he thought.

And in an imperious voice, he said:

"You have no right to despair thus; you owe a sacred duty to your
child."

He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.

The recollection which had given Marie-Anne strength to hold death at
bay for a moment, saved Maurice from the dangerous torpor into which he
was sinking. He trembled as if he had received an electric shock, and
springing from his chair:

"That is true," he cried. "Take me to my child."

"Not just now, Maurice; wait a little."

"Where is it? Tell me where it is."

"I cannot; I do not know."

An expression of unspeakable anguish stole over the face of Maurice, and
in a husky voice he said:

"What! you do not know! Did she not confide in you?"

"No. I suspected her secret. I alone----"

"You, alone! Then the child is dead, perhaps. Even if it is living, who
can tell me where it is?"

"We shall undoubtedly find something that will give us a clew."

"You are right," faltered the wretched man. "When Marie-Anne knew that
her life was in danger, she would not have forgotten her child. Those
who cared for her in her last moments must have received some message
for me. I wish to see those who watched over her. Who were they?"

The priest averted his face.

"I asked you who was with her when she died," repeated Maurice, in a
sort of frenzy.

And