has happened! It is not quite three miles to Puiseux and I shall be there in half-an-hour; I should like to ascertain if the Baron is really dead.” A melancholy howl made answer to his words; he looked round; his faithful body-guards were back again; he had his pack about him once more.
“Come, wolves! come, my only friends!” he cried, “let us be off!” And he started with them across the forest in the direction of Puiseux. The huntsmen of the Lord of Vez, who were poking up the remaining embers of the ruined hut, saw a man pass, as in a vision, running at the head of a dozen or more wolves. They crossed themselves, and became more convinced than ever that Thibault was a wizard. And anybody else who had seen Thibault, flying along as swiftly as his swiftest wolf, and covering the ground between Oigny and Puiseux in less than a quarter of an hour, would certainly have thought so too.
He stopped at the entrance to the village, and turning to his wolves, he said:
“Friend wolves, I have no further need of you to-night, and indeed, I wish to be alone. Amuse yourselves with the stables in the neighbourhood, I give you leave to do just what you like; and if you chance to come across one of those two-footed animals, called men, forget, friend wolves, that they claim to be made in the image of their Creator, and never fear to satisfy your appetite.” Whereupon the wolves rushed off in different directions, uttering howls of joy, while Thibault went on into the village. The Curé’s house adjoined the church, and Thibault made a circuit so as to avoid passing in front of the Cross. When he reached the presbytery, he looked in through one of the windows, and there he saw a bed with a lighted wax candle beside it; and over the bed itself was spread a sheet, and beneath the sheet could be seen the outlines of a figure lying rigid in death. There appeared to be no one in the house; the priest had no doubt gone to give notice of the death to the village authorities. Thibault went inside, and called the priest, but no one answered. He walked up to the bed, there could be no mistake about the body under the sheet being that of a dead man; he lifted the sheet, there could be no mistaking that the dead body was that of Raoul de Vauparfond. On his face lay the still, unearthly beauty which is born of eternity. His features, which in life had been somewhat too feminine for those of a man, had now assumed the sombre grandeur of death. At the first glance you might have thought he only slept; but on gazing longer you recognised in that immovable calm something more profound than sleep. The presence of one who carries a sickle for sceptre, and wears a shroud for mantle was unmistakeable, and you knew King Death was there.
Thibault had left the door open, and he heard the sound of light footsteps approaching; at the back of the alcove hung a serge curtain, which masked a door by which he could retreat, if necessary, and he now went and placed himself behind it. A woman dressed in black, and covered with a black veil, paused in some hesitation at the door. The head of another woman passed in front of her’s and looked carefully round the room.
“I think it is safe for Madame to go in; I see no one about, and besides, I will keep watch.”
The woman in black went in, walked slowly towards the bed, stopped a moment to wipe the perspiration from her forehead, then, without further hesitation, lifted the sheet which Thibault had thrown back over the face of the dead man; Thibault then saw that it was the Countess.
“Alas!” she said, “what they told me was true!”
Then she fell on her knees, praying and sobbing. Her prayer being ended, she rose again, kissed the pale forehead of the dead, and the blue marks of the wound through which the soul had fled.
“O my well-beloved, my Raoul;” she murmured, “who will tell me the name of your murderer? who will help me to avenge your death?” As the Countess finished speaking, she gave a cry and started back; she seemed to hear a voice that answered, “I will!” and something had shaken the green serge curtain.
The Countess however was no chicken-hearted woman; she took the candle that was burning at the head of the bed and went and looked behind the curtain; but no creature was to be seen, a closed door was all that met her eye. She put back the candle, took a pair of gold scissors from a little pocket case, cut off a curl of the dead man’s hair, placed the curl in a black velvet sachet which hung over her heart, gave one last kiss to her dead lover, laid the sheet over his face, and left the house. Just as she was crossing the threshold, she met the priest, and drawing back, drew her veil more closely over her face.
“Who are you?” asked the priest.
“I am Grief,” she answered, and the priest made way for her to pass.
The Countess and her attendant had come on foot, and were returning in the same manner, for the distance between Puiseux and Mont-Gobert was not much more than half-a-mile. When about half way along their road, a man, who had been hiding behind a willow tree, stepped forward and barred their further passage. Lisette screamed, but the Countess, without the least sign of fear, went up to the man, and asked: “Who are you?”
“The man who answered ‘I will’ just now, when you were asking who would denounce the murderer to you.”
“And you can help me to revenge myself on him?”
“Whenever you like.”
“At once?”
“We cannot talk here very well.”
“Where can we find a better place?”
“In your own room for one.”
“We must not enter the castle together.”
“No; but I can go through the breach in the park wall: Mademoiselle Lisette can wait for me in the hut where Monsieur Raoul used to leave his horse, she can take me up the winding-stair and into your room. If you should be in your dressing-room, I will wait for you, as Monsieur Raoul waited the night before last.”
The two women shuddered from head to foot.
“Who are you to know all these details?” asked the Countess.
“I will tell you when the time comes for me to tell you.”
The Countess hesitated a moment, then, recovering her resolution, she said:
“Very well then; come through the breach; Lisette will wait for you in the stable.”
“Oh! Madame,” cried the maid, “I shall never dare to go and bring that man to you!”
“I will go myself then,” said the Countess.
“Well said!” put in Thibault, “there spoke a woman worth calling one!” And so saying he slid down into a kind of ravine beside the road, and disappeared. Lisette very nearly fainted.
“Lean on me, Mademoiselle,” said the Countess, “and let us walk on; I am anxious to hear what this man has to say to me.”
The two women entered the castle by way of the farm; no one had seen them go out, and no one saw them return. On reaching her room, the Countess waited for Lisette to bring up the stranger. Ten minutes had elapsed when the maid hurried in with a pale face.
“Ah! Madame,” she said, “there was no need for me to go to fetch him.”
“What do you mean?” asked the Countess.
“Because he knew his way up as well as I did! And oh! Madame! if you knew what he said to me! That man is the devil, Madame, I feel sure!”
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