at mademoiselle
had a lover, and that her lips could smile.

They did not smile again, however. Next day she looked whiter than ever,
and languid as a broken blossom.

"She is ill," declared madame. "The stairs she has to climb are too much
for her."

"Ah, ha!" thought I to myself. "That is the first move," and waited for
the next development.

It has not come as soon as I expected. Two days have passed, and though
Mademoiselle Letellier grows paler and thinner, nothing more has been
said about the stairs. But the time has not passed without its incident,
and a serious enough one, too, if these women are, as I fear, in the
secret of the hidden chamber.

It is this: In the garden is a white stone. It is plain-finished but
unlettered. It marks the resting-place of Honora Urquhart. For reasons
which we all thought good, we have taken no uninterested person into the
secret of this grave, any more than we have into that of the hidden
chamber.

Consequently no one in the house but myself could answer Madame
Letellier, when, stopping in her short walk up and down the garden path,
she asked what the white stone meant and what it marked. I would not
answer her. I had seen from the window where I stood the quick surprise
with which she had come to a standstill at the sight of this stone, and
I had caught the tremble in her usually steady voice as she made the
inquiry I have mentioned above. I therefore hastened down and joined her
before she had left the spot.

"You are wondering what this stone means," I observed, with an
indifferent tone calculated to set her at her ease. Then suddenly, and
with a changed voice and a secret look into her face, I added: "It is a
headstone; a dead body lies here."

She quivered, and her lids fell. For all her self-possession--and she is
the most self-possessed person I ever saw in my life--she showed a
change that gave me new thoughts and made me summon up all the strength
I am mistress of, in order to preserve the composure which her agitation
had so deeply shaken.

[Illustration]

"You shock me," were her first words, uttered very slowly, and with a
transparent show of indifference. "It is not usual to find a garden
used for a burial place. May I ask whose body lies here? That of some
faithful black or of a favorite horse?"

"It is not that of a horse," I returned, calmly. And greatly pleased to
find that I had placed her in a position where she would be obliged to
press the que