he years marched on and stories spread about the town, stories of a
strange and lovely _belle dame sans merci_, a modern Circe who lured
young gallants to their doom. Time and again some gay young blade of
New Orleans would boast a conquest. Passing late at night through
Royal Street, he would have a flower dropped to him as he walked
underneath a balcony. He would meet a lovely girl dressed in the early
Empire style, and be surprized at the ease with which he pushed his
suit; then--upon the trees in Chartres Street appeared his funeral
notices. He was dead, invariably he was dead of snake-bite. _Parbleu_,
it got to be a saying that he who died mysteriously must have met the
Lady of the Moonlight as he walked through Royal Street!"

He paused and poured a thimbleful of brandy in his coffee. "You see?"
he asked.

"No, I'm shot if I do!" I answered. "I can't see the connection
between----"

"Night and breaking dawn, perhaps?" he asked sarcastically. "If two
and two make four, my friend, and even you will not deny they do, then
these things I have told you give an explanation of our young friend's
trouble. This girl he met was most indubitably Julie, poor little
Julie d'Ayen on whose tombstone it is carved: '_Ici repose
malheureusement_--here lies unhappily.' The so mysterious snake which
menaces young Monsieur Minton is none other than the aged Maman
Dragonne--_grand'tante_, as Julie called her."

"But Ned's already failed to keep his tryst," I objected. "Why didn't
this snake-woman sting him in the hotel, or----"

"Do you recall what Julie said when first the snake appeared?" he
interrupted. "'Not this one, _grand'tante_!' And again, in the old
cemetery when the serpent actually struck at him, she threw herself
before him and received the blow. It could not permanently injure her;
to earthly injuries the dead are proof, but the shock of it caused her
to swoon, it seems. _Monsieur_," he bowed to Ned, "you are more
fortunate than any of those others. Several times you have been close
to death, but each time you escaped. You have been given chance and
chance again to keep your pledged word to the dead, a thing no other
faithless lover of the little Julie ever had. It seems, Monsieur, this
dead girl truly loves you."

"How horrible!" I muttered.

"You said it, Doctor Trowbridge!" Ned seconded. "It looks as if I'm in
a spot, all right."

"_Mais non_," de Grandin contradicted. "Escape is obvious, my friend."

"How,