wer-shelf projecting from the tomb. As my eyes came level
with the slab that sealed the crypt I felt the breath catch in my
throat. The crypt, like all its fellows, looked for all the world like
an old oven let into a brick wall overlaid with peeling plaster. The
sealing-stone was probably once white, but years had stained it to a
dirty gray, and time had all but rubbed its legend out. Still, I could
see the faint inscription carved in quaint, old-fashioned letters, and
disbelief gave way to incredulity, which was replaced by panic terror
as I read:

_Ici repose malheureusement
Julie Amelie Marie d'Ayen
Nationale de Paris France
Nee le 29 Aout 1788
Decedee a la N O le 2 Juillet 1807_

"Julie! Little Julie whom I'd held in my arms, whose mouth had lain on
mine in eager kisses, was a corpse! Dead and in her grave more than a
century!"

* * * * *

The silence lengthened. Ned stared miserably before him, his outward
eyes unseeing, but his mind's eye turned upon that scene in old Saint
Denis Cemetery. De Grandin tugged and tugged again at the ends of his
mustache till I thought he'd drag the hairs out by the roots. I could
think of nothing which might ease the tension till:

"Of course, the name cut on the tombstone was a piece of pure
coincidence," I hazarded. "Most likely the young woman deliberately
assumed it to mislead you----"

"And the snake which threatened our young friend, he was an
assumption, also, one infers?" de Grandin interrupted.

"N-o, but it could have been a trick. Ned saw an aged Negress in the
cemetery, and those old Southern darkies have strange powers----"

"I damn think that you hit the thumb upon the nail that time, my
friend," the little Frenchman nodded, "though you do not realize how
accurate your diagnosis is." To Ned:

"Have you seen this snake again since coming North?"

"Yes," Ned replied. "I have. I was too stunned to speak when I read
the epitaph, and I wandered back to the hotel in a sort of daze and
packed my bags in silence. Possibly that's why there was no further
visitation there. I don't know. I do know nothing further happened,
though, and when several months had passed with nothing but my
memories to remind me of the incident, I began to think I'd suffered
from some sort of walking nightmare. Nella and I went ahead with
preparations for our wedding, but three weeks ago the postman brou