went off trippingly in high
spirits to her own chamber, where she instantly ran to the mirror to
look at her teeth, and made faces in the glass like a foolish girl in
her teens.

Bigot, out of a feeling of delicacy not usual with him, bid Cadet wait
in the anteroom while he went forward to the secret chamber of Caroline.
"The sudden presence of a stranger might alarm her," he said.

He descended the stair and knocked softly at the door, calling in a low
tone, "Caroline! Caroline!" No answer came. He wondered at that, for her
quick ear used always to catch the first sound of his footsteps while
yet afar off.

He knocked louder, and called again her name. Alas! he might have called
forever! That voice would never make her heart flutter again or her eyes
brighten at his footstep, that sounded sweeter than any music as she
waited and watched for him, always ready to meet him at the door.

Bigot anticipated something wrong, and with a hasty hand pushed open
the door of the secret chamber and went in. A blaze of light filled
his eyes. A white form lay upon the floor. He saw it and he saw nothing
else! She lay there with her unclosed eyes looking as the dead only
look at the living. One hand was pressed to her bosom, the other was
stretched out, holding the broken stem and a few green leaves of the
fatal bouquet which La Corriveau had not wholly plucked from her grasp.

Bigot stood for a moment stricken dumb and transfixed with horror, then
sprang forward and knelt over her with a cry of agony. He thought she
might have fallen in a swoon. He touched her pale forehead, her lips,
her hands. He felt her heart, it did not beat; he lifted her head to his
bosom, it fell like the flower of a lily broken on its stem, and he knew
she was dead. He saw the red streaks of blood on her snowy robe, and he
knew she was murdered.

A long cry like the wail of a man in torture burst from him. It woke
more than one sleeper in the distant chambers of the Chateau, making
them start upon their pillows to listen for another cry, but none came.
Bigot was a man of iron; he retained self-possession enough to recollect
the danger of rousing the house.

He smothered his cries in suffocating sobs, but they reached the ear of
Cadet, who, foreboding some terrible catastrophe, rushed into the room
where the secret door stood open. The light glared up the stair. He ran
down and saw the Intendant on his knees, holding in his arms the half
raised form o