shone full on the tall figure of the strange visitor,
and Caroline, whose fears had anticipated some uncouth sight of terror,
was surprised to see only a woman dressed in the simple garb of a
peasant, with a little basket on her arm, enter quietly through the
secret door.

The eyes of La Corriveau glared for a moment with fiendish curiosity
upon the young girl who stood before her like one of God's angels. She
measured her from head to foot, noted every fold of her white robe,
every flexure of her graceful form, and drank in the whole beauty and
innocence of her aspect with a feeling of innate spite at aught so fair
and good. On her thin, cruel lips there played a smile as the secret
thought hovered over them in an unspoken whisper,--"She will make a
pretty corpse! Brinvilliers and La Voisin never mingled drink for a
fairer victim than I will crown with roses to-night!"

Caroline retreated a few steps, frightened and trembling, as she
encountered the glittering eyes and sinister smile of La Corriveau. The
woman observed it, and instantly changed her mien to one more natural
and sympathetic; for she comprehended fully the need of disarming
suspicion and of winning the confidence of her victim to enable her more
surely to destroy her.

Caroline, reassured by a second glance at her visitor, thought she had
been mistaken in her first impression. The peasant's dress, the harmless
basket, the quiet manner assumed by La Corriveau as she stood in a
respectful attitude as if waiting to be spoken to, banished all fears
from the mind of Caroline, and left her only curious to know the issue
of this mysterious visit.

CHAPTER XLI. A DEED WITHOUT A NAME.

Caroline, profoundly agitated, rested her hands on the back of a
chair for support, and regarded La Corriveau for some moments without
speaking. She tried to frame a question of some introductory kind, but
could not. But the pent-up feelings came out at last in a gush straight
from the heart.

"Did you write this?" said she, falteringly, to La Corriveau, and
holding out the letter so mysteriously placed in her hand by Mere
Malheur. "Oh, tell me, is it true?"

La Corriveau did not reply except by a sign of assent, and standing
upright waited for further question.

Caroline looked at her again wonderingly. That a simple peasant-woman
could have indited such a letter, or could have known aught respecting
her father, seemed incredible.

"In heaven's name, tell me who