generally reported?"

"No, monsieur."

"You learned it yourself?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"But he must have known you would pursue him."

"He left with great secrecy, monsieur the abbe." It was given out that
he was merely going to the country."

"What made you suspect he was coming to Mittau?"

"He hired a strong post-chaise and made many preparations."

"But didn't his friend the Marquis du Plessy discover the robbery? Why
didn't he follow and take the thief?"

"Dead men don't follow, monsieur the abbe. The Marquis du Plessy had a
duel on his hands, and was killed the day after this Lazarre left
Paris."

Of all Bellenger's absurd fabrications this story was the most
ridiculous. I laughed again. Madame d'Angouleme took her hands from her
face and our eyes met one instant, but the idiot whined like a dog. She
shuddered, and covered her sight.

The priest turned from Bellenger to me with a fair-minded expression,
and inquired,

"What have you to say?"

I had a great deal to say, though the only hearer I expected to convince
was my sister. If she believed in me I did not care whether the others
believed or not. I was going to begin with Lake George, the mountain,
and the fog, and Bellenger's fear of me, and his rage when Louis
Philippe told him the larger portion of the money sent from Europe was
given to me.

Facing Marie-Therese, therefore, instead of the Abbe Edgeworth, I spoke
her name. She looked up once more. And instead of being in Mittau, I
was suddenly on a balcony at Versailles!

The night landscape, chill and dim, stretched beyond a multitude of
roaring mouths, coarse lips, flaming eyes, illuminated by torches, the
heads ornamented with a three-colored thing stuck into the caps. My hand
stretched out for support, and met the tight clip of my mother's
fingers. I knew that she was towering between Marie-Therese and me a
fearless palpitating statue. The devilish roaring mob shot above itself
a forced, admiring, piercing cry--"Long live the queen!" Then all became
the humming of bees--the vibration of a string--nothing!

X

Blackness surrounded the post-carriage in which I woke, and it seemed to
stand in a tunnel that was afire at one end. Two huge trees, branches
and all, were burning on a big hearth, stones glowing under them; and
figures with long beards, in black robes, passed betwixt me and the
fire, stirring a cauldron. If ever witches' brewing was seen, it looked
like that.

Th