tion of the sacred name. "But it is in her,
Fanchon. It is in all of us! If she is not so already, she will be. But
go into the house and see your foolish uncle, while I go prepare for
my visit. We will set out at once, Fanchon, for business like that of
Angelique des Meloises cannot wait."

CHAPTER XXXIV. WEIRD SISTERS.

Fanchon walked into the house to see her uncle Dodier. When she was
gone, the countenance of La Corriveau put on a dark and terrible
expression. Her black eyes looked downwards, seeming to penetrate the
very earth, and to reflect in their glittering orbits the fires of the
underworld.

She stood for a few moments, buried in deep thought, with her arms
tightly folded across her breast. Her fingers moved nervously, as they
kept time with the quick motions of her foot, which beat the ground.

"It is for death, and no lost jewels, that girl sends for me!" muttered
La Corriveau through her teeth, which flashed white and cruel between
her thin lips. "She has a rival in her love for the Intendant, and she
will lovingly, by my help, feed her with the manna of St. Nicholas!
Angelique des Meloises has boldness, craft, and falseness for twenty
women, and can keep secrets like a nun. She is rich and ambitious, and
would poison half the world rather than miss the thing she sets her mind
on. She is a girl after my own heart, and worth the risk I run with her.
Her riches would be endless should she succeed in her designs; and with
her in my power, nothing she has would henceforth be her own,--but mine!
mine! Besides," added La Corriveau, her thoughts flashing back to the
fate which had overtaken her progenitors, Exili and La Voisin, "I
may need help myself, some day, to plead with the Intendant on my own
account,--who knows?"

A strange thrill ran through the veins of La Corriveau, but she
instantly threw it off. "I know what she wants," added she. "I will take
it with me. I am safe in trusting her with the secret of Beatrice Spara.
That girl is worthy of it as Brinvilliers herself."

La Corriveau entered her own apartment. She locked the door behind her,
drew a bunch of keys from her bosom, and turned towards a cabinet of
singular shape and Italian workmanship which stood in a corner of the
apartment. It was an antique piece of furniture, made of some dark
oriental wood, carved over with fantastic figures from Etruscan designs
by the cunning hand of an old Italian workman, who knew well how to
make secr