Marcele fortunately could oblige the Sieur Cadet. "He did line his livery a little, but lightly, as his Honor would see!" said he, bringing out a bottle of cognac and a drinking-cup.

"It is to keep us from catching cold!" continued Cadet in his peculiar way. "Is it good?" He placed the bottle to his lips and tasted it.

Marcele assured him it was good as gold.

"Right!" said Cadet, throwing Marcele a louis d'or. "I will take the bottle to the Intendant to keep him from catching cold too! Mind, Marcele, you keep your tongue still, or else--!" Cadet held up his whip, and bidding the porter "good-night!" rejoined Bigot.

Cadet had a crafty design in this proceeding. He wanted not to tell Marcele that a lady was accompanying them; also not to let him perceive that they left Beaumanoir without one. He feared that the old porter and Dame Tremblay might possibly compare notes together, and the housekeeper discover that Caroline had not left Beaumanoir with the Intendant.

Bigot sat faint and listless in his saddle when Cadet poured out a large cupful of brandy and offered it to him. He drank it eagerly. Cadet then filled and gulped down a large cupful himself, then gave another to the Intendant, and poured another and another for himself until, he said, he "began to feel warm and comfortable, and got the damnable taste of grave-digging out of his mouth!"

The heavy draught which Cadet forced the Intendant to take relieved him somewhat, but he groaned inwardly and would not speak. Cadet respected his mood, only bidding him ride fast. They spurred their horses, and rode swiftly, unobserved by any one, until they entered the gates of the Palace of the Intendant.

The arrival of the Intendant or the Sieur Cadet at the Palace at any untimely hour of the night excited no remark whatever, for it was the rule, rather than the exception with them both.

Dame Tremblay was not surprised next morning to find the chamber empty and the lady gone.

She shook her head sadly. "He is a wild gallant, is my master! No wilder ever came to Lake Beauport when I was the Charming Josephine and all the world ran after me. But I can keep a secret, and I will! This secret I must keep at any rate, by the Intendant's order, and I would rather die than be railed at by that fierce Sieur Cadet! I will keep the Intendant's secret safe as my teeth, which he praised so handsomely and so justly!"

The fact that Caroline never returned to the Chateau, and that the search for her was so long and so vainly carried on by La Corne St. Luc and the Baron de St. Castin, caused the dame to suspect at last that some foul play had been perpetrated, but she dared not speak openly.

The old woman's suspicions grew with age into certainties, when at last she chanced to talk with her old fellow servant, Marcele, the gatekeeper, and learned from him that Bigot and Cadet had left the Chateau alone on that fatal night. Dame Tremblay was more perplexed than ever. She talked, she knew not what, but her talk passed into the traditions of the habitans.

It became the popular belief that a beautiful woman, the mistress of the powerful Intendant Bigot, had been murdered and buried in the Chateau of Beaumanoir.

CHAPTER XLIII. SILK GLOVES OVER BLOODY HANDS.

It was long before Angelique came to herself from the swoon in which she had been left lying on the floor by La Corriveau. Fortunately for her it was without discovery. None of the servants happened to come to her room during its continuance, else a weakness so strange to her usual hardihood would have become the city's talk before night, and set all its idle tongues conjecturing or inventing a reason for it. It would have reached the ears of Bigot, as every spray of gossip did, and set him thinking, too, more savagely than he was yet doing, as to the causes and occasions of the murder of Caroline.

All the way back to the Palace, Bigot had scarcely spoken a word to Cadet. His mind was in a tumult of the wildest conjectures, and his thoughts ran to and fro like hounds in a thick brake darting in every direction to find the scent of the game they were in search of. When they reached the Palace, Bigot, without speaking to any one, passed through the anterooms to his own apartment, and threw himself, dressed and booted as he was, upon a couch, where he lay like a man stricken down by a mace from some unseen hand.

Cadet had coarser ways of relieving himself from the late unusual strain upon his rough feelings. He went down to the billiard-room, and joining recklessly in the game that was still kept up by De Pean, Le Gardeur, and a number of wild associates, strove to drown all recollections of the past night at Beaumanoir by drinking and gambling with more than usual violence until far on in the day.

Bigot neither slept nor wished to sleep. The image of the murdered girl lying in her rude grave was ever before him, with a vividness so terrible that it seemed he could never sleep again. His thoughts ran round and round like a mill-wheel, without advancing a step towards a solution of the mystery of her death.

He summoned up his recollections of every man and woman he knew in the Colony, and asked himself regarding each one, the question, "Is it he who has done this? Is it she who has prompted it? And who could have had a motive, and who not, to perpetrate such a bloody deed?"

One image came again and again before his mind's eye as he reviewed the list of his friends and enemies. The figure of Angelique appeared and reappeared, intruding itself between every third or fourth personage which his memory called up, until his thoughts fixed upon her with the maddening inquiry, "Could Angelique des Meloises have been guilty of this terrible deed?"

He remembered her passionate denunciation of the lady of Beaumanoir, her fierce demand for her banishment by a lettre de cachet. He knew her ambition and recklessness, but still, versed as he was in all the ways of wickedness, and knowing the inexorable bitterness of envy, and the cruelty of jealousy in the female breast,--at least in such women as he had for the most part had experience of,--Bigot could hardly admit the thought that one so fair as Angelique, one who held him in a golden net of fascination, and to whom he had been more than once on the point of yielding, could have committed so great a crime.

He struggled with his thoughts like a man amid tossing waves, groping about in the dark for a plank to float upon, but could find none. Still, in spite of himself, in spite of his violent asseverations that "it was IMPOSSIBLE;" in spite of Cadet's plausible theory of robbers,--which Bigot at first seized upon as the likeliest explanation of the mystery,--the thought of Angelique ever returned back upon him like a fresh accusation.

He could not accuse her yet, though something told him he might have to do so at last. He grew angry at the ever-recurring thought of her, and turning his face to the wall, like a man trying to shut out the light, resolved to force disbelief in her guilt until clearer testimony than his own suspicions should convict her of the death of Caroline. And yet in his secret soul he dreaded a discovery that might turn out as he feared. But he pushed the black thoughts aside; he would wait and watch for what he feared to find.

The fact of Caroline's concealment at Beaumanoir, and her murder at the very moment when the search was about to be made for her, placed Bigot in the cruelest dilemma. Whatever his suspicions might be, he dared not, by word or sign, avow any knowledge of Caroline's presence, still less of her mysterious murder, in his Chateau. Her grave had been dug; she had been secretly buried out of human sight, and he was under bonds as for his very life never to let the dreadful mystery be discovered.

So Bigot lay on his couch, for once a weak and frightened man, registering vain vows of vengeance against persons unknown, vows which he knew at the moment were empty as bubbles, because he dared not move hand or foot in the matter to carry them out, or make open accusation against any one of the foul crime. What thoughts came to Bigot's subtle mind were best known to himself, but something was suggested by the mocking devil who was never far from him, and he caught and held fast the wicked suggestion with a bitter laugh. He then grew suddenly still and said to himself, "I will sleep on it!" and pillowing his head quietly, not in sleep, but in thoughts deeper than sleep, he lay till day.

Angelique, who had never in her life swooned before, felt, when she awoke, like one returning to life from death. She opened her eyes wondering where she was, and half remembering the things she had heard as things she had seen, looked anxiously around the room for La Corriveau. She rose up with a start when she saw she was gone, for Angelique recollected suddenly that La Corriveau now held the terrible secret which concerned her life and peace for evermore.

The thing she had so long wished for, and prayed for, was at last done!

Her rival was out of the way! But she also felt that if the murder was discovered her own life was forfeit to the law, and the secret was in the keeping of the vilest of women.

A mountain, not of remorse, but of apprehension, overwhelmed her for a time. But Angelique's mind was too intensely selfish, hard, and superficial, to give way to the remorse of a deeper nature.

She was angry at her own cowardice, but she feared the suspicions of Bigot. There was ever something in his dark nature which she could not fathom, and deep and crafty as she knew herself to be, she feared that he was more deep and more crafty than herself.

What if he should discover her hand in this bloody business? The thought drove her frantic, until she fancied she repented of the deed.

Had it brought a certainty, this crime, then--why, then--she had found a compensation for the risk she was running, for the pain she was enduring, which she tried to believe was regret and pity for her victim.

Her anxiety redoubled when it occurred to her that Bigot, remembering her passionate appeals to him for the removal of Caroline, might suspect her of the murder as the one alone having a palpable interest in it.

"But Bigot shall never believe it even if he suspect it!" exclaimed she at last, shaking off her fears. "I have made fools of many men for my pleasure, I can surely blind one for my safety; and, after all, whose fault is it but Bigot's? He would not grant me the lettre de cachet nor keep his promise for her removal. He even gave me her life! But he lied; he did not mean it. He loved her too well, and meant to deceive me and marry her, and I have deceived him and shall marry him, that is all!"

and Angelique laughed a hysterical laugh, such as Dives in his torments may sometimes give way to.

"La Corriveau has betrayed her trust in one terrible point," continued she, "she promised a death so easy that all men would say the lady of Beaumanoir died of heartbreak only, or by God's visitation! A natural death! The foul witch has used her stiletto and made a murder of that which, without it, had been none! Bigot will know it, must know it even if he dare not reveal it! for how in the name of all the saints is it to be concealed?

"But, my God! this will never do!" continued she, starting up, "I look like very guilt!" She stared fiercely in the mirror at her hollow eyes, pale cheeks, and white lips. She scarcely recognized herself. Her bloom and brightness had vanished for the time.

"What if I have inhaled some of the poisoned odor of those cursed roses?" thought she, shuddering at the supposition; but she reassured herself that it could not be. "Still, my looks condemn me! The pale face of that dead girl is looking at me out of mine! Bigot, if he sees me, will not fail to read the secret in my looks."

She glanced at the clock: the morning was far advanced towards noon; visitors might soon arrive, Bigot himself might come, she dare not deny herself to him. She would deny herself to no one to-day! She would go everywhere and see everybody, and show the world, if talk of it should arise, that she was wholly innocent of that girl's blood.

She would wear her brightest looks, her gayest robe, her hat and feathers, the newest from Paris. She would ride out into the city,--go to the Cathedral,--show herself to all her friends, and make every one say or think that Angelique des Meloises had not a care or trouble in the world.

She rang for Fanchon, impatient to commence her toilet, for when dressed she knew that she would feel like herself once more, cool and defiant.

The touch of her armor of fashionable attire would restore her confidence in herself, and enable her to brave down any suspicion in the mind of the Intendant,--at any rate it was her only resource, and Angelique was not one to give up even a lost battle, let alone one half gained through the death of her rival.

Fanchon came in haste at the summons of her mistress. She had long waited to hear the bell, and began to fear she was sick or in one of those wild moods which had come over her occasionally since the night of her last interview with Le Gardeur.

The girl started at sight of the pale face and paler lips of her mistress. She uttered an exclamation of surprise, but Angelique, anticipating all questions, told her she was unwell, but would dress and take a ride out in the fresh air and sunshine to recruit.

"But had you not better see the physician, my Lady?--you do look so pale to-day, you are really not well!"

"No, but I will ride out;" and she added in her old way, "perhaps, Fanchon, I may meet some one who will be better company than the physician. Qui sait?" And she laughed with an appearance of gaiety which she was far from feeling, and which only half imposed on the quick-witted maid who waited upon her.

"Where is your aunt, Fanchon? When did you see Dame Dodier?" asked she, really anxious to learn what had become of La Corriveau.

"She returned home this morning, my Lady! I had not seen her for days before, but supposed she had already gone back to St. Valier,--but Aunt Dodier is a strange woman, and tells no one her business."

"She has, perhaps, other lost jewels to look after besides mine,"

replied Angelique mechanically, yet feeling easier upon learning the departure of La Corriveau.

"Perhaps so, my Lady. I am glad she is gone home. I shall never wish to see her again."