as choking him.

"Monster of hell!" he muttered, casting on Rodin a terrible glance of
rage and agony. "Thou art the cause of my death."

"I always told you, my dear father, that your old military habits would
be fatal to you," answered Rodin with a frightful smile. "Only a few days
ago, I gave you warning, and advised you take a blow patiently from this
old swordsman--who seems to have done with that work forever, which is
well--for the Scripture says: 'All they that take the sword shall perish
with the sword.' And then this Marshal Simon might have had some claim on
his daughter's inheritance. And, between ourselves, my dear father, what
was I to do? It was necessary to sacrifice you for the common interest;
the rather, that I well knew what you had in pickle for me to-morrow. But
I am not so easily caught napping."

"Before I die," said Father d'Aigrigny, in a failing voice, "I will
unmask you."

"Oh, no, you will not," said Rodin, shaking his head with a knowing air;
"I alone, if you please, will receive your last confession."

"Oh! this is horrible," moaned Father d'Aigrigny, whose eyes were
closing. "May God have mercy on me, if it is not too late!--Alas! at this
awful moment, I feel that I have been a great sinner--"

"And, above all, a great fool," said Rodin, shrugging his shoulders, and
watching with cold disdain the dying moments of his accomplice.

Father d'Aigrigny had now but a few minutes more to live. Rodin perceived
it, and said: "It is time to call for help." And the Jesuit ran, with an
air of alarm and consternation, into the courtyard of the house.

Others came at his cries; but, as he had promised, Rodin had only quitted
Father d'Aigrigny as the latter had breathed his last sigh.

That evening, alone in his chamber, by the glimmer of a little lamp,
Rodin sat plunged in a sort of ecstatic contemplation, before the print
representing Sixtus V. The great house-clock struck twelve. At the last
stroke, Rodin drew himself up in all the savage majesty of his infernal
triumph, and exclaimed: "This is the first of June. There are no more
Renneponts!--Methinks, I hear the hour from the clock of St. Peter's at
Rome striking!"

CHAPTER LXVII.

A MESSAGE.

While Rodin sat plunged in ambitious reverie, contemplating the portrait
of Sixtus V., good little Father Caboccini, whose warm embraces had so
much irritated the first mentioned personage, went secretly to Faringhea,
to deliver to him a fr