ng open, and behind it gaped a dark, narrow passage leading to the
secret chamber of Caroline.

She entered without hesitation, knowing whither it led. It was damp and
stifling. Her candle burned dimmer and dimmer in the impure air of the
long shut-up passage. There were, however, no other obstacles in her
way. The passage was unincumbered; but the low arch, scarcely over her
own height, seemed to press down upon her as she passed along, as if to
prevent her progress. The fearless, wicked heart bore her up,--nothing
worse than herself could meet her; and she felt neither fear at what lay
before her nor remorse at what was behind.

The distance to be traversed was not far, although it seemed to her
impatience to be interminable. Mere Malheur, with her light heels,
could once run through it in a minute, to a tryst in the old tower. La
Corriveau was thrice that time in groping her way along it before she
came to a heavy, iron-ribbed door set in a deep arch, which marked the
end of the passage.

That black, forbidding door was the dividing of light from darkness, of
good from evil, of innocence from guilt. On one side of it, in a chamber
of light, sat a fair girl, confiding, generous, and deceived only
through her excess of every virtue; on the other, wickedness, fell and
artful, was approaching with stealthy footsteps through an unseen way,
and stood with hand upraised to knock, but incapable of entering in
unless that unsuspecting girl removed the bar.

As the hour of midnight approached, one sound after another died away in
the Chateau. Caroline, who had sat counting the hours and watching the
spectral moon as it flickered among the drifting clouds, withdrew from
the window with a trembling step, like one going to her doom.

She descended to the secret chamber, where she had appointed to meet her
strange visitor and hear from strange lips the story that would be told
her.

She attired herself with care, as a woman will in every extremity of
life. Her dark raven hair was simply arranged, and fell in thick masses
over her neck and shoulders. She put on a robe of soft, snow-white
texture, and by an impulse she yielded to, but could not explain, bound
her waist with a black sash, like a strain of mourning in a song of
innocence. She wore no ornaments save a ring, the love-gift of Bigot,
which she never parted with, but wore with a morbid anticipation that
its promises would one day be fulfilled. She clung to it as a ta