Yet her fear was not on her own account. She could have kissed her father's hand and submitted humbly to death itself, if he chose to inflict it; but she trembled most at the thought of a meeting between the fiery Baron and the haughty Intendant. One or the other, or both of them, she felt instinctively, must die, should the Baron discover that Bigot had been the cause of the ruin of his idolized child. She trembled for both, and prayed God that she might die in their stead and the secret of her shame never be known to her fond father.

A dull sound, like footsteps shuffling in the dark passage behind the arras, struck her ear; she knew her strange visitant was come. She started up, clasping her hands hard together as she listened, wondering who and what like she might be. She suspected no harm,--for who could desire to harm her who had never injured a living being? Yet there she stood on the one side of that black door of doom, while the calamity of her life stood on the other side like a tigress ready to spring through.

A low knock, twice repeated on the thick door behind the arras, drew her at once to her feet. She trembled violently as she lifted up the tapestry; something rushed through her mind telling her not to do it.

Happy had it been for her never to have opened that fatal door!

She hesitated for a moment, but the thought of her father and the impending search of the Chateau flashed suddenly upon her mind. The visitant, whoever she might be, professed to be a friend, and could, she thought, have no motive to harm her.

Caroline, with a sudden impulse, pushed aside the fastening of the door, and uttering the words, "Dieu! protege moi!" stood face to face with La Corriveau.

The bright lamp 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 and what you are!" exclaimed she. "I never saw you before!"

"You have seen me before!" replied La Corriveau quietly.

Caroline looked at her amazedly, but did not recognize her. La Corriveau continued, "Your father is the Baron de St. Castin, and you, lady, would rather die than endure that he should find you in the Chateau of Beaumanoir. Ask me not how I know these things; you will not deny their truth; as for myself, I pretend not to be other than I seem."

"Your dress is that of a peasant-woman, but your language is not the language of one. You are a lady in disguise visiting me in this strange fashion!" said Caroline, puzzled more than ever. Her thoughts at this instant reverted to the Intendant. "Why do you come here in this secret manner?" asked she.

"I do not appear other than I am," replied La Corriveau evasively, "and I come in this secret manner because I could get access to you in no other way."

"You said that I had seen you before; I have no knowledge or recollection of it," remarked Caroline, looking fixedly at her.

"Yes, you saw me once in the wood of St. Valier. Do you remember the peasant-woman who was gathering mandrakes when you passed with your Indian guides, and who gave you milk to refresh you on the way?"

This seemed like a revelation to Caroline; she remembered the incident and the woman. La Corriveau had carefully put on the same dress she had worn that day.

"I do recollect!" replied Caroline, as a feeling of confidence welled up like a living spring within her. She offered La Corriveau her hand. "I thank you gratefully," said she; "you were indeed kind to me that day in the forest, and I am sure you must mean kindly by me now."

La Corriveau took the offered hand, but did not press it. She could not for the life of her, for she had not heart to return the pressure of a human hand. She saw her advantage, however, and kept it through the rest of the brief interview.

"I mean you kindly, lady," replied she, softening her harsh voice as much as she could to a tone of sympathy, "and I come to help you out of your trouble."

For a moment that cruel smile played on her thin lips again, but she instantly repressed it. "I am only a peasant-woman," repeated she again, "but I bring you a little gift in my basket to show my good-will." She put her hand in her basket, but did not withdraw it at the moment, as Caroline, thinking little of gifts but only of her father, exclaimed,--

"I am sure you mean well, but you have more important things to tell me of than a gift. Your letter spoke of my father. What, in God's name, have you to tell me of my father?"

La Corriveau withdrew her hand from the basket and replied, "He is on his way to New France in search of you. He knows you are here, lady."

"In Beaumanoir? Oh, it cannot be! No one knows I am here!" exclaimed Caroline, clasping her hands in an impulse of alarm.

"Yes, more than you suppose, lady, else how did I know? Your father comes with the King's letters to take you hence and return with you to Acadia or to France." La Corriveau placed her hand in her basket, but withdrew it again. It was not yet time.

"God help me, then!" exclaimed Caroline, shrinking with terror. "But the Intendant; what said you of the Intendant?"

"He is ordered de par le Roi to give you up to your father, and he will do so if you be not taken away sooner by the Governor."

Caroline was nigh fainting at these words. "Sooner! how sooner?" asked she, faintly.

"The Governor has received orders from the King to search Beaumanoir from roof to foundation-stone, and he may come to-morrow, lady, and find you here."

The words of La Corriveau struck like sharp arrows into the soul of the hapless girl.

"God help me, then!" exclaimed she, clasping her hands in agony. "Oh, that I were dead and buried where only my Judge could find me at the last day, for I have no hope, no claim upon man's mercy! The world will stone me, dead or living, and alas! I deserve my fate. It is not hard to die, but it is hard to bear the shame which will not die with me!"

She cast her eyes despairingly upward as she uttered this, and did not see the bitter smile return to the lips of La Corriveau, who stood upright, cold and immovable before her, with fingers twitching nervously, like the claws of a fury, in her little basket, while she whispered to herself, "Is it time, is it time?" but she took not out the bouquet yet.

Caroline came still nearer, with a sudden change of thought, and clutching the dress of La Corriveau, cried out, "O woman, is this all true? How can you know all this to be true of me, and you a stranger?"

"I know it of a certainty, and I am come to help you. I may not tell you by whom I know it; perhaps the Intendant himself has sent me," replied La Corriveau, with a sudden prompting of the spirit of evil who stood beside her. "The Intendant will hide you from this search, if there be a sure place of concealment in New France."

The reply sent a ray of hope across the mind of the agonized girl. She bounded with a sense of deliverance. It seemed so natural that Bigot, so deeply concerned in her concealment, should have sent this peasant woman to take her away, that she could not reflect at the moment how unlikely it was, nor could she, in her excitement, read the lie upon the cold face of La Corriveau.

She seized the explanation with the grasp of despair, as a sailor seizes the one plank which the waves have washed within his reach, when all else has sunk in the seas around him.

"Bigot sent you?" exclaimed Caroline, raising her hands, while her pale face was suddenly suffused with a flush of joy. "Bigot sent you to conduct me hence to a sure place of concealment? Oh, blessed messenger!

I believe you now." Her excited imagination outflew even the inventions of La Corriveau. "Bigot has heard of my peril, and sent you here at midnight to take me away to your forest home until this search be over.

Is it not so? Francois Bigot did not forget me in my danger, even while he was away!"

"Yes, lady, the Intendant sent me to conduct you to St. Valier, to hide you there in a sure retreat until the search be over," replied La Corriveau, calmly eyeing her from head to foot.

"It is like him! He is not unkind when left to himself. It is so like the Francois Bigot I once knew! But tell me, woman, what said he further? Did you see him, did you hear him? Tell me all he said to you."

"I saw him, lady, and heard him," replied La Corriveau, taking the bouquet in her fingers, "but he said little more than I have told you.

The Intendant is a stern man, and gives few words save commands to those of my condition. But he bade me convey to you a token of his love; you would know its meaning, he said. I have it safe, lady, in this basket,--shall I give it to you?"

"A token of his love, of Francois Bigot's love to me! Are you a woman and could delay giving it so long? Why gave you it not at first? I should not have doubted you then. Oh, give it to me, and be blessed as the welcomest messenger that ever came to Beaumanoir!"

La Corriveau held her hand a moment more in the basket. Her dark features turned a shade paler, although not a nerve quivered as she plucked out a parcel carefully wrapped in silver tissue. She slipped off the cover, and held at arm's length towards the eager, expectant girl, the fatal bouquet of roses, beautiful to see as the fairest that ever filled the lap of Flora.