den confusion in the opposite room. She
heard Colette's voice, and then George's, calling Lisa.

There was no answer.

Frances stood up, to listen. "Will she not speak?" she cried. "Make
her speak!"

But in reality she said nothing. Even her breath had stopped to listen.

There was no answer.

Frances was awake now, for the rest of her life. She knew what she had
done.

"Why, George," she said, "she cannot speak. She is dead. I did it."

She stood in the room a minute, looking from side to side, and then
went with measured steps out of it, down the corridor and into the
street.

"I did it," she said to herself again and again, as she walked slowly
on.

The old cathedral is opposite to the inn. Her eyes, as she passed,
rested on the gargoyles, and she thought how fine they were. One was a
ridiculous head with lolling tongue.

A priest's voice inside was chanting mass. A dozen Breton women in
their huge white winged caps and wooden shoes hurried up to the door,
through the gray fog. They met Mrs. Waldeaux and saw her face. They
huddled to one side, crossing themselves, and when she passed, stood
still, forgetting the mass and looking, frightened, up the steep street
behind her to find what horror had pursued her.

"They know what I have done," she said aloud.

Once when she was a child she had accidentally seen a bloated wretch, a
murderer, on his way to the gallows.

"I am he," she thought. "I--_I_, Frances."

Then the gargoyle came into her mind again. What a capital headpiece
it would make for "Quigg's" next column! It was time this week's jokes
were sent.

But at last these ghosts of yesterday's life faded out, and she saw the
fact.

She had hated her son's wife and had killed her!

CHAPTER XV

When the sun was well up the women who had been at mass gathered down
by the little river which runs through the old city, to wash their
clothes. They knelt on the broad stones by the edge of the water,
chattering and singing, tossing the soap from one to another.

There was a sudden silence. "Here she is again," they whispered, as a
slight, delicate woman crossed the bridge with steady steps.

"She is blind and deaf," said old Barbe. "I met her an hour ago and
asked her whom she sought. She did not see nor hear me, but walked
straight on."

Oliver Bauzy was lounging near, as usual, watching his wife work.

"She is English. What does she know of your Breton talk? I speak