ore talking to about the
matter you know of, so important as it is, and, maybe, able to give us
peace and quiet for the rest of our days! I really think the devil must
be in it, or else you simply will not be sensible: do show your common
sense, my good man, and look at it from all points of view; take it at
its very worst, and you still ought to feel bound to serve me, seeing how
I have made everything all right for you: all our interests are together
in this matter. Do help me, I beg of you; you may feel sure I shall be
deeply grateful, and you will never before have acted so agreeably both
for me and for yourself. You know quite enough about it, for I have not
spoken so openly even to my own brother as I have to you. If you can
come this afternoon, I shall be either at the house or quite near at
hand, you know where I mean, or I will expect you tomorrow morning, or I
will come and find you, according to what you reply.--Always yours with
all my heart."

The house meant by Sainte-Croix was in the rue des Bernardins, and the
place near at hand where he was to wait for Belleguise was the room he
leased from the widow Brunet, in the blind alley out of the Place
Maubert. It was in this room and at the apothecary Glazer's that
Sainte-Croix made his experiments; but in accordance with poetical
justice, the manipulation of the poisons proved fatal to the workers
themselves. The apothecary fell ill and died; Martin was attacked by
fearful sickness, which brought, him to death's door. Sainte-Croix was
unwell, and could not even go out, though he did not know what was the
matter. He had a furnace brought round to his house from Glazer's, and
ill as he was, went on with the experiments. Sainte-Croix was then
seeking to make a poison so subtle that the very effluvia might be fatal.
He had heard of the poisoned napkin given to the young dauphin, elder
brother of Charles VII, to wipe his hands on during a game of tennis, and
knew that the contact had caused his death; and the still discussed
tradition had informed him of the gloves of Jeanne d'Albret; the secret
was lost, but Sainte-Croix hoped to recover it. And then there happened
one of those strange accidents which seem to be not the hand of chance
but a punishment from Heaven. At the very moment when Sainte-Croix was
bending over his furnace, watching the fatal preparation as it became
hotter and hotter, the glass mask which he wore over his face as a
protection from