e white arm partly
bare. Her long golden locks flowed loosely down her back and touched
the floor, as she sat on her chair and watched and waited for the coming
footsteps of La Corriveau. Her lips were compressed with a terrible
resolution; her eyes glanced red as they alternately reflected the glow
of the fire within them and of the fire without. Her hands were clasped
nervously together, with a grip like iron, and lay in her lap, while her
dainty foot marked the rhythm of the tragical thoughts that swept like a
song of doom through her soul.

The few compunctious feelings which struggled up into her mind were
instantly overborne by the passionate reflection that the lady of
Beaumanoir must die! "I must, or she must--one or other! We cannot both
live and marry this man!" exclaimed she, passionately. "Has it come to
this: which of us shall be the wife, which the mistress? By God, I would
kill him too, if I thought he hesitated in his choice; but he shall soon
have no choice but one! Her death be on her own head and on Bigot's--not
on mine!"

And the wretched girl strove to throw the guilt of the sin she
premeditated upon her victim, upon the Intendant, upon fate, and, with
a last subterfuge to hide the enormity of it from her own eyes, upon La
Corriveau, whom she would lead on to suggest the crime and commit it!--a
course which Angelique tried to believe would be more venial than if it
were suggested by herself! less heinous in her own eyes, and less wicked
in the sight of God.

"Why did that mysterious woman go to Beaumanoir and place herself in the
path of Angelique des Meloises?" exclaimed she angrily. "Why did Bigot
reject my earnest prayer, for it was earnest, for a lettre de cachet to
send her unharmed away out of New France?"

Then Angelique sat and listened without moving for a long time. The
clock ticked loud and warningly. There was a sighing of the wind about
the windows, as if it sought admittance to reason and remonstrate with
her. A cricket sang his monotonous song on the hearth. In the wainscot
of the room a deathwatch ticked its doleful omen. The dog in the
courtyard howled plaintively as the hour of midnight sounded upon
the Convent bell, close by. The bell had scarcely ceased ere she was
startled by a slight creaking like the opening of a door, followed by a
whispering and the rustle of a woman's garments, as of one approaching
with cautious steps up the stair. A thrill of expectation, not unmingle