the next day; and she had brought me in a
stock of provisions, begging me to keep within
doors, with a strange kind of fearful oblivion
of the fact that I had never set foot beyond the
threshold of the house since I had first entered
it—- scarce ever ventured down the stairs. But,
although my poor, my dear, very faithful Amante
was like one possessed that last night, she spoke
continually of the dead, which is a bad sign for
the living. She kissed you—- yes! it was you,
my daughter, my darling, whom I bore beneath
my bosom away from the fearful castle of your
father—I call him so for the first time, I must
call him so once again before I have done—
Amante kissed you, sweet baby, blessed little
comforter, as if she never could leave off. And
then she went away, alive.

Two days, three days passed away. That
third evening I was sitting within my bolted
doors—you asleep on your pillow by my side—
when a step came up the stair, and I knew it
must be for me; for ours were the topmost
rooms. Some one knocked; I held my very
breath. But some one spoke, and I knew it
was the good Doctor Voss. Then I crept to
the door, and answered.

"Are you alone?" asked I.

"Yes," said he, in a still lower voice. " Let
me in." I let him in, and he was as alert as I
in bolting and barring the door. Then he came
and whispered to me his doleful tale. He had
come from the hospital in the opposite quarter
of the town, the hospital which he visited; he
should have been with me sooner, but he had
feared lest he should be watched. He had come
from Amante's death-bed. Her fears of the
jeweller were too well founded. She had left
the house where she was employed that morning,
to transact some errand connected with her work
in the town; she must have been followed, and
dogged on her way back through solitary
wood-paths, for some of the wood-rangers belonging
to the great house had found her lying there,
stabbed to death, but not dead; with the
poniard again plunged through the fatal writing,
once more; but this time with the word " un"
underlined, so as to show that the assassin was
aware of his previous mistake.

Numéro Un.
Ainsi les Chauffeurs se vengent.

They had carried her to the house, and given
her restoratives till she had recovered the feeble
use of her speech. But, oh, faithful dear friend
and sister! even then she remembered me, and
refused to tell (what no one else among her
fellow workmen knew), where she lived or
with whom. Life was ebbing away fast, and
they had no resource but to carry her to the
nearest hospital, where, of course, the fact of her
sex was made known. Fortunately both for her
and for me, the doctor in attendance was the
very Doctor Voss whom we already knew. To
him, while awaiting her confessor, she told
enough to enable him to understand the position
in which I was left; before the priest had heard
half her tale Amante was dead.

Doctor Voss told me he had made all sorts of
détours, and waited thus, late at night, for fear
of being watched and followed. But I do not
think he was. At any rate, as I afterwards
learnt from him, the Baron RÅ“der, on hearing
of the similitude of this murder with that of his
wife in every particular, made such a search
after the assassins, that, although they were not
discovered, they were compelled to take to
flight for the time.

I can hardly tell you now by what arguments
Dr. Voss, at first merely my benefactor, sparing
me a portion of his small modicum, at length
persuaded me to become his wife. His wife he
called it, I called it; for we went through the
religious ceremony too much slighted at the
time, and as we were both Lutherans, and
M. de la Tourelle had pretended to be of the
reformed religion, a divorce from the latter would
have been easily procurable by German law both
ecclesiastical and legal, could we have
summoned so fearful a man into any court.

The good doctor took me and my child by stealth
to his modest dwelling; and there I lived in the
same deep retirement, never seeing the full light of
day, although when the dye had once passed away
from my face my husband did not wish me to
renew it. There was no need; my yellow hair
was grey, my complexion was ashen-coloured,
no creature could have recognised the
fresh-coloured, bright-haired young woman of eighteen
months before. The few people whom I saw
knew me only as Madame Voss; a widow much
older than himself whom Dr. Voss had secretly
married. They called me the Grey Woman.

He made me give you his surname. Till now
you have known no other father—while he lived
you needed no father's love. Once only, only
once more, did the old terror come upon me.
For some reason which I forget, I broke through
my usual custom and went to the window of
my room for some purpose, either to shut or to
open it. Looking out into the street for an
instant, I was fascinated by the sight of M. de la
Tourelle, gay, young, elegant as ever, walking
along on the opposite side of the street. The
noise I had made with the window caused him
to look up; he saw me, an old grey woman, and
he did not recognise me! Yet it was not three
years since we had parted, and his eyes, were
keen and dreadful like those of the lynx.

I told M. Voss, on his return home, and he
tried to cheer me, but the shock of seeing M.
de la Tourelle had been too terrible for me. I
was ill for long months afterwards.

Once again I saw him. Dead. He and
Lefebvre were at last caught; hunted down by the
Baron de RÅ“der in some of their crimes. Dr.
Voss had heard of their arrest; their condemnation,
their death; but he never said a word to
me, until one day he bade me show him that I
loved him by my obedience and my trust. He
took me a long carriage journey, where to I know
not, for we never spoke of that day again.; I was
led through a prison, into a closed court-yard,
where, decently draped in the last robes of
death, concealing the marks of decapitation, lay