hin sank forward and he fell back,
death starkening his limbs and glazing the eyes which stared hideously
upwards at the cold, pitiless moon.

Such was the passing of the Marquis Cesar de St. Auban.

CHAPTER XXV. PLAY-ACTING

For a little while I stood gazing down at my work, my mind full of the
unsolvable mysteries of life and death; then I bethought me that
time stood not still for me, and that something yet remained to be
accomplished ere my evening's task were done.

And forthwith I made shift to do a thing at the memory of which my blood
is chilled and my soul is filled with loathing even now--albeit the gulf
of many years separates me from that June night at Canaples.

To pass succinctly o'er an episode on which I have scant heart to tarry,
suffice it you to know that using my sash as a rope I bound a heavy
stone to St. Auban's ankle; then lifting the body in my arms, I half
dragged, half bore it across the little stretch of intervening sward to
the water's edge, and flung it in.

As I write I have the hideous picture in my mind, and again I can see
St. Auban's ghastly face grinning up at me through the moonlit waters,
until at last it was mercifully swallowed up in their black depths, and
naught but a circling wavelet that spread swiftly across the stream was
left to tell of what had chanced.

I dare not dwell upon the feelings that assailed me as I stooped to
rinse the blood from my hands, nor yet of the feverish haste wherewith I
tore my blood-stained doublet from my back, and hurled it wide into the
stream. For all my callousness I was sick and unmanned by that which had
befallen.

No time, however, did I waste in mawkish sentiment, but setting my teeth
hard, I turned away from the river, and back to the trampled ground of
our recent conflict. There, with no other witness save the moon, I clad
myself in the Marquis's doublet of black velvet; I set his mask of silk
upon my face, his golden wig upon my head, and over that his sable hat
with its drooping feather. Next I buckled on his sword belt, wherefrom
hung his rapier that I had sheathed.

In Blois that day I had taken the precaution--knowing the errand upon
which I came--to procure myself haut-de-chausses of black velvet, and
black leather boots with gilt spurs that closely resembled those which
St. Auban had worn in life.

Now, as I have already written, St. Auban and I were of much the same
build and stature, and so methought with confi