Caroline clasped it with both hands, exclaiming in a voice of exultation, while every feature radiated with joy, "It is the gift of God, and the return of Francois's love! All will yet be well!"

She pressed the glowing flowers to her lips with passionate kisses, breathed once or twice their mortal poison, and suddenly throwing back her head with her dark eyes fixed on vacancy, but holding the fatal bouquet fast in her hands, fell dead at the feet of La Corriveau.

A weird laugh, terrible and unsuppressed, rang around the walls of the secret chamber, where the lamps burned bright as ever; but the glowing pictures of the tapestry never changed a feature. Was it not strange that even those painted men should not have cried out at the sight of so pitiless a murder?

Caroline lay amid them all, the flush of joy still on her cheek, the smile not yet vanished from her lips. A pity for all the world, could it have seen her; but in that lonely chamber no eye pitied her.

But now a more cruel thing supervened. The sight of Caroline's lifeless form, instead of pity or remorse, roused all the innate furies that belonged to the execrable race of La Corriveau. The blood of generations of poisoners and assassins boiled and rioted in her veins. The spirits of Beatrice Spara and of La Voisin inspired her with new fury. She was at this moment like a pantheress that has brought down her prey and stands over it to rend it in pieces.

Caroline lay dead, dead beyond all doubt, never to be resuscitated, except in the resurrection of the just. La Corriveau bent over her and felt her heart; it was still. No sign of breath flickered on lip or nostril.

The poisoner knew she was dead, but something still woke her suspicions, as with a new thought she drew back and looked again at the beauteous form before her. Suddenly, as if to make assurance doubly sure, she plucked the sharp Italian stiletto from her bosom, and with a firm, heavy hand plunged it twice into the body of the lifeless girl. "If there be life there," she said, "it too shall die! La Corriveau leaves no work of hers half done!"

A faint trickle of blood in red threads ran down the snow-white vestment, and that was all! The heart had forever ceased to beat, and the blood to circulate. The golden bowl was broken and the silver cord of life loosed forever, and yet this last indignity would have recalled the soul of Caroline, could she have been conscious of it. But all was well with her now; not in the sense of the last joyous syllables she spoke in life, but in a higher, holier sense, as when God interprets our words, and not men, all was well with her now.

The gaunt, iron-visaged woman knelt down upon her knees, gazing with unshrinking eyes upon the face of her victim, as if curiously marking the effect of a successful experiment of the aqua tofana.

It was the first time she had ever dared to administer that subtle poison in the fashion of La Borgia.

"The aqua tofana does its work like a charm!" muttered she. "That vial was compounded by Beatrice Spara, and is worthy of her skill and more sure than her stiletto! I was frantic to use that weapon, for no purpose than to redden my hands with the work of a low bravo!"

A few drops of blood were on the hand of La Corriveau. She wiped them impatiently upon the garment of Caroline, where it left the impress of her fingers upon the snowy muslin. No pity for her pallid victim, who lay with open eyes looking dumbly upon her, no remorse for her act touched the stony heart of La Corriveau.

The clock of the Chateau struck one. The solitary stroke of the bell reverberated like an accusing voice through the house, but failed to awaken one sleeper to a discovery of the black tragedy that had just taken place under its roof.

That sound had often struck sadly upon the ear of Caroline, as she prolonged her vigil of prayer through the still watches of the night.

Her ear was dull enough now to all earthly sound! But the toll of the bell reached the ear of La Corriveau, rousing her to the need of immediately effecting her escape, now that her task was done.

She sprang up and looked narrowly around the chamber. She marked with envious malignity the luxury and magnificence of its adornments. Upon a chair lay her own letter sent to Caroline by the hands of Mere Malheur.

La Corriveau snatched it up. It was what she sought. She tore it in pieces and threw the fragments from her; but with a sudden thought, as if not daring to leave even the fragments upon the floor, she gathered them up hastily and put them in her basket with the bouquet of roses, which she wrested from the dead fingers of Caroline in order to carry it away and scatter the fatal flowers in the forest.

She pulled open the drawers of the escritoire to search for money, but finding none, was too wary to carry off aught else. The temptation lay sore upon her to carry away the ring from the finger of Caroline.

She drew it off the pale wasted finger, but a cautious consideration restrained her. She put it on again, and would not take it.

"It would only lead to discovery!" muttered she. "I must take nothing but myself and what belongs to me away from Beaumanoir, and the sooner the better!"

La Corriveau, with her basket again upon her arm, turned to give one last look of fiendish satisfaction at the corpse, which lay like a dead angel slain in God's battle. The bright lamps were glaring full upon her still beautiful but sightless eyes, which, wide open, looked, even in death, reproachfully yet forgivingly upon their murderess.

Something startled La Corriveau in that look. She turned hastily away, and, relighting her candle, passed through the dark archway of the secret door, forgetting to close it after her, and retraced her steps along the stone passage until she came to the watch-tower, where she dashed out her light.

Creeping around the tower in the dim moonlight, she listened long and anxiously at door and window to discover if all was still about the Chateau. Not a sound was heard but the water of the little brook gurgling in its pebbly bed, which seemed to be all that was awake on this night of death.

La Corriveau emerged cautiously from the tower. She crept like a guilty thing under the shadow of the hedge, and got away unperceived by the same road she had come. She glided like a dark spectre through the forest of Beaumanoir, and returned to the city to tell Angelique des Meloises that the arms of the Intendant were now empty and ready to clasp her as his bride; that her rival was dead, and she had put herself under bonds forever to La Corriveau as the price of innocent blood.

La Corriveau reached the city in the gray of the morning; a thick fog lay like a winding-sheet upon the face of nature. The broad river, the lofty rocks, every object, great and small, was hidden from view.

To the intense satisfaction of La Corriveau, the fog concealed her return to the house of Mere Malheur, whence, after a brief repose, and with a command to the old crone to ask no questions yet, she sallied forth again to carry to Angelique the welcome news that her rival was dead.

No one observed La Corriveau as she passed, in her peasant dress, through the misty streets, which did not admit of an object being discerned ten paces off.

Angelique was up. She had not gone to bed that night, and sat feverishly on the watch, expecting the arrival of La Corriveau.

She had counted the minutes of the silent hours of the night as they passed by her in a terrible panorama. She pictured to her imagination the successive scenes of the tragedy which was being accomplished at Beaumanoir.

The hour of midnight culminated over her head, and looking out of her window at the black, distant hills, in the recesses of which she knew lay the Chateau, her agitation grew intense. She knew at that hour La Corriveau must be in the presence of her victim. Would she kill her? Was she about it now? The thought fastened on Angelique like a wild beast, and would not let go. She thought of the Intendant, and was filled with hope; she thought of the crime of murder and shrunk now that it was being done.

It was in this mood she waited and watched for the return of her bloody messenger. She heard the cautious foot on the stone steps. She knew by a sure instinct whose it was, and rushed down to admit her.

They met at the door, and without a word spoken, one eager glance of Angelique at the dark face of La Corriveau drank in the whole fatal story. Caroline de St. Castin was dead! Her rival in the love of the Intendant was beyond all power of rivalry now! The lofty doors of ambitious hope stood open--what! to admit the queen of beauty and of society? No! but a murderess, who would be forever haunted with the fear of justice! It seemed at this moment as if the lights had all gone out in the palaces and royal halls where her imagination had so long run riot, and she saw only dark shadows, and heard inarticulate sounds of strange voices babbling in her ear. It was the unspoken words of her own troubled thoughts and the terrors newly awakened in her soul!

Angelique seized the hand of La Corriveau, not without a shudder. She drew her hastily up to her chamber and thrust her into a chair. Placing both hands upon the shoulders of La Corriveau, she looked wildly in her face, exclaiming in a half exultant, half piteous tone, "Is it done? Is it really done? I read it in your eyes! I know you have done the deed!

Oh, La Corriveau!"

The grim countenance of the woman relaxed into a half smile of scorn and surprise at the unexpected weakness which she instantly noted in Angelique's manner.

"Yes, it is done!" replied she, coldly, "and it is well done! But, by the manna of St. Nicholas!" exclaimed she, starting from the chair and drawing her gaunt figure up to its full height, while her black eyes shot daggers, "you look, Mademoiselle, as if you repented its being done. Do you?"

"Yes! No! No, not now!" replied Angelique, touched as with a hot iron.

"I will not repent now it is done! that were folly, needless, dangerous, now it is done! But is she dead? Did you wait to see if she were really dead? People look dead sometimes and are not! Tell me truly, and conceal nothing!"

"La Corriveau does not her work by halves, Mademoiselle, neither do you; only you talk of repentance after it is done, I do not! That is all the difference! Be satisfied; the lady of Beaumanoir is dead! I made doubly sure of that, and deserve a double reward from you!"

"Reward! You shall have all you crave! But what a secret between you and me!" Angelique looked at La Corriveau as if this thought now struck her for the first time. She was in this woman's power. She shivered from head to foot. "Your reward for this night's work is here," faltered she, placing her hand over a small box. She did not touch it, it seemed as if it would burn her. It was heavy with pieces of gold. "They are uncounted," continued she. "Take it, it is all yours!"

La Corriveau snatched the box off the table and held it to her bosom.

Angelique continued, in a monotonous tone, as one conning a lesson by rote,--"Use it prudently. Do not seem to the world to be suddenly rich: it might be inquired into. I have thought of everything during the past night, and I remember I had to tell you that when I gave you the gold.

Use it prudently! Something else, too, I was to tell you, but I think not of it at this moment."

"Thanks, and no thanks, Mademoiselle!" replied La Corriveau, in a hard tone. "Thanks for the reward so fully earned. No thanks for your faint heart that robs me of my well-earned meed of applause for a work done so artistically and perfectly that La Brinvilliers, or La Borgia herself, might envy me, a humble paysanne of St. Valier!"

La Corriveau looked proudly up as she said this, for she felt herself to be anything but a humble paysanne. She nourished a secret pride in her heart over the perfect success of her devilish skill in poisoning.

"I give you whatever praise you desire," replied Angelique, mechanically. "But you have not told me how it was done. Sit down again," continued she, with a touch of her imperative manner, "and tell me all and every incident of what you have done."

"You will not like to hear it. Better be content with the knowledge that your rival was a dangerous and a beautiful one." Angelique looked up at this. "Better be content to know that she is dead, without asking any more."

"No, you shall tell me everything. I cannot rest unless I know all!"

"Nor after you do know all will you rest!" replied La Corriveau slightingly, for she despised the evident trepidation of Angelique.

"No matter! you shall tell me. I am calm now." Angelique made a great effort to appear calm while she listened to the tale of tragedy in which she had played so deep a part.

La Corriveau, observing that the gust of passion was blown over, sat down in the chair opposite Angelique, and placing one hand on the knee of her listener, as if to hold her fast, began the terrible recital.

She gave Angelique a graphic, minute, and not untrue account of all she had done at Beaumanoir, dwelling with fierce unction on the marvellous and sudden effects of the aqua tofana, not sparing one detail of the beauty and innocent looks of her victim; and repeating, with a mocking laugh, the deceit she had practised upon her with regard to the bouquet as a gift from the Intendant.

Angelique listened to the terrible tale, drinking it in with eyes, mouth, and ears. Her countenance changed to a mask of ugliness, wonderful in one by nature so fair to see. Cloud followed cloud over her face and eyes as the dread recital went on, and her imagination accompanied it with vivid pictures of every phase of the diabolical crime.