ully than she did at this apparition of
the father.

She did not speak. He simply said: "They made the plunge, they are both
dead--like Blaise."

Then, though she still said nothing, she looked at him. For a moment
their eyes met. And in her glance he read everything: the murder was
begun afresh, effected, consummated. Over yonder lay the bodies, dead,
one atop of the other.

"Wretched woman, to what monstrous perversity have you fallen! And how
much blood there is upon you!"

By an effort of supreme pride Constance was able to draw herself up and
even increase her stature, still wishing to conquer, and cry aloud that
she was indeed the murderess, that she had always thwarted him, and
would ever do so. But Mathieu was already overwhelming her with a final
revelation.

"You don't know, then, that that ruffian, Alexandre, was one of the
murderers of your friend, Madame Angelin, the poor woman who was robbed
and strangled one winter afternoon. I compassionately hid that from you.
But he would now be at the galleys had I spoken out! And if I were to
speak to-day you would be there too!"

That was the hatchet-stroke. She did not speak, but dropped, all of a
lump, upon the carpet, like a tree which has been felled. This time her
defeat was complete; destiny, which she awaited, had turned against her
and thrown her to the ground. A mother the less, perverted by the
love which she had set on her one child, a mother duped, robbed,
and maddened, who had glided into murder amid the dementia born of
inconsolable motherliness! And now she lay there, stretched out, scraggy
and withered, poisoned by the affection which she had been unable to
bestow.

Mathieu became anxious, and summoned the old servant, who, after
procuring assistance, carried her mistress to her bed and then undressed
her. Meantime, as Constance gave no sign of life, seized as she was
by one of those fainting fits which often left her quite breathless,
Mathieu himself went for Boutan, and meeting him just as he was
returning home for dinner, was luckily able to bring him back at once.

Boutan, who was now nearly seventy-two, and was quietly spending
his last years in serene cheerfulness, born of his hope in life, had
virtually ceased practising, only attending a very few old patients,
his friends. However, he did not refuse Mathieu's request. When he had
examined Constance he made a gesture of hopelessness, the meaning of
which was so plain that Mathieu, h