th
the winding-sheet as she lay, white as a snow-drift, and as cold. They
wrapped her softly in the blankets, and without a word spoken, lowered
the still, lissom body into its rude grave.

The awful silence was only broken by the spasmodic sobs of Bigot as he
leaned over the grave to look his last upon the form of the fair girl
whom he had betrayed and brought to this untimely end. "Mea culpa! Mea
maxima culpa!" said he, beating his breast. "Oh, Cadet, we are burying
her like a dog! I cannot, I cannot do it!"

The Intendant's feelings overcame him again, and he rushed from the
chamber, while Cadet, glad of his absence for a few moments, hastily
filled up the grave and, replacing with much care the stone slabs
over it, swept the debris into the passage and spread the carpet
again smoothly over the floor. Every trace of the dreadful deed was
obliterated in the chamber of murder.

Cadet, acutely thinking of everything at this supreme moment, would
leave no ground of suspicion for Dame Tremblay when she came in the
morning to visit the chamber. She should think that her lady had gone
away with her master as mysteriously as she had come, and no further
inquiry would be made after her. In this Cadet was right.

It was necessary for Cadet and Bigot now to depart by the secret passage
to the tower. The deep-toned bell of the chateau struck three.

"We must now be gone, Bigot, and instantly," exclaimed Cadet. "Our night
work is done! Let us see what day will bring forth! You must see to
it to-morrow, Bigot, that no man or woman alive ever again enter this
accursed chamber of death!"

Cadet fastened the secret door of the stair, and gathering up his spades
and bar of iron, left the chamber with Bigot, who was passive as a child
in his hands. The Intendant turned round and gave one last sorrowful
look at the now darkened room as they left it. Cadet and he made their
way back to the tower. They sallied out into the open air, which blew
fresh and reviving upon their fevered faces after escaping from the
stifling atmosphere below.

They proceeded at once towards their horses and mounted them, but Bigot
felt deadly faint and halted under a tree while Cadet rode back to the
porter's lodge and roused up old Marcele to give him some brandy, if he
had any, "as of course he had," said Cadet. Brandy was a gate-porter's
inside livery, the lining of his laced coat which he always wore. Cadet
assumed a levity which he did not really f