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 Another Random Document on
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 "It has come to the city again," she whispered in Laure's ear, as
the latter lay prostrate by her side--chained to her side--"As it has
come, they say, more than thirty times since first Christ walked the
earth--since Cæsar first made the place his. It must be that it has
come again."

"What?" murmured Laure, not understanding. "What has come?

Freedom or death? Which is it?"

"Probably both," Marion Lascelles answered. "Freedom and death.

Both."

Then, because her eyes were clearer than the eyes of many by
whom she was surrounded, and because her great, strong frame
had resisted even the fatigues and the miseries of that terrible
journey from Paris to which so many of her original companions had
succumbed--to which all had succumbed, more or less!--she was
able to observe that the mounted gendarmes and the warders and
gaolers were holding close consultation; and that, also, they looked
terror-stricken and agitated. She was able to observe, too, that a
moment later they had been joined by a creature which had crept up
the hill to where they were, and had slowly drawn near to them. Yet
it had done so as though half afraid to approach too close, or as one
who feared that he might be beaten away as an unknown dog is
driven off on approaching too near to the heels of a stranger.

Thrusting her brown, sunburnt hands through her matted, coal-

black hair, now filled and clotted with mud that had once been the
dust of the long weary roads she had traversed until the rain turned
it into what it was, she parted that hair from off her eyes and glared
transfixed at the figure. It was that of a man almost old, his sparse
white locks glistening in the rays of the moon which now overtopped
the brow of the hill behind them--yet it was neither the man's age
nor his grey hairs that appalled her. Instead, it was his face, which
was of a loathsome yellow hue--it being plainly perceptible in the
moonbeams--as is the face of a man stricken to death with jaundice;
a face covered, too, with huge carbuncles and pustules, and with
eyes of a chalky, dense white, sunken in the hollow sockets.

"It is," Marion muttered hoarsely to herself, "the pest. That man is
sickening, has sickened of it. God help us all! Slave-drivers and
slaves alike. I saw one like him at Toulon once." And again she
muttered, "God help us all!"

Above her murmur, which hardly escaped beyond her white,

clenched teeth, there rose a shout from those whom she termed to
herself the slave-drivers--a shout of fury and of horror.

"Away, leper!" cried the man who had been the most stern of all
the guards, on seeing this figure near to him and his companions;
"away, or I shoot you like a dog," and he wrenched a great horse
pistol from out his belt as he spoke. "Away, I say, to a distance. At
once."

The unfortunate, yellow-faced creature did as he was bidden,

dragging himself wearily off for several paces, while falling once,
also, upon one knee, yet recovering himself by the aid of a huge
knotted stick he held in his hands; then he turned and said in a
voice which, though feeble, was still strong enough to be heard:

"In the name of God give me some water. I burn within. Oh! that
one should live and yet endure such agony!"

"You shall have water--later," a warder answered. "Only, approach

not on peril of your life. Presently, a jar of water for you shall be
carried to a spot near here." Then the speaker asked huskily, and in
a voice which trembled with fear, "Is it the pest? Down there--in the
city?"

"It is the pest," the man replied, his awful white eyes gleaming
sickeningly. "They die in hundreds daily. Whole families--whole
streets of families--are dead. All mine are gone--my wife and seven
children. I, too, am stricken after nursing, burying them. I cannot
live. In pity's sake, put that jar of water where I can reach it ere--ere
they come forth!"

"They come forth?" the guards of the cordon exclaimed all

together. "Ere who come forth?"

"Many who are still left alive. All are fleeing who can leave the
city. It is a vast tomb. Hundreds lie dead in the streets--poisoning,
infecting the air. Also, the dogs--they, too, are stricken, through
tearing them. The rooks, likewise, who have swooped down upon
the bodies. God help me! The water! The water The water! Ere they
come."

Perhaps it was compassion, perhaps fear, perhaps the knowledge

that ere long they, too, might be burning inwardly from the same
cause as that which now affected this unhappy man, which caused
those brutal custodians to take pity on his sufferings. But, from
whatever cause it might be, at least that pity was shown. A flat,
squat bottle holding about a pint was taken by one of them to a little
rising knoll some seventy yards away and put on the ground; then
the pest-stricken man was told he might go to it.

By now, even as he hobbled and dragged himself on his stick

towards that knoll, his white eyes gleaming horribly, the women of
the chain-gang had somewhat recovered from the stupor in which
they had been lying; some besides Marion Lascelles had even sat up
upon the rain-steeped ground and had heard all that had passed.
And, now, they raised their voices in a shrill clatter, shrieking to their
custodians:

"Release us! Release us! Set us free! We are not doomed to this;
instead, we are on our road to freedom. Strike off these accursed
irons; let us find safety somewhere. None meant that we should
perish thus," while Marion's voice was the loudest, most strident of
all, since she was the strongest and the fiercest.
 A common fear--a common horror--was upon everyone by now:
women prisoners and captors, or custodians, alike; all dreaded what
was impending over them. Wherefore their cries and shrieks, which,
before this day, would have been answered with the lash or the
heavy riding wand, were replied to almost kindly.

"Have patience, good women," the gendarmes and guards

replied, "have patience. All may yet be well. If the vessels are in the
port they will soon carry you to sea; to a pure air away from this."

Yet still more hubbub arose from all the women. Those very
women who, upon the weary journey, had prayed that each day
might be their last, screamed at this time for life and safety and
preservation from this awful death--the death by the pest.

"Turn us back," they wailed. "Turn us back. It has not penetrated

inland, or we should have heard of it on the route. Turn us back, or
set us free to escape by ourselves. 'Tis all we ask. It is our due. The
law desires not our death. Above all, no such death as this!"

But again their guardians bade them have patience, telling them
that soon they would be on board the transports and well out upon
the pure bosom of the ocean.

"Well out!" cried Marion Lascelles, her voice still harsh and
strident, her accent defiant and contemptuous. "Well out to sea! Yes,
after traversing that fever-stricken city from one end to the other to
reach the docks. How shall we accomplish that; how will you, who
must accompany us? You! You, too! Can we pass through Marseilles
unharmed? Can you?" and again she emphasised the "you," while
striking terror into the men's hearts and making them quake as they
sat on their horses or reclined in the carts. "All are doomed. We, the
prisoners. You, the gaolers."

Those men knew it was as she said; they knew that their lives
were subject to as much risk, were as certain to be forfeited, as the
lives of the wretched women in their charge. Whereon they trembled
and grew pale, especially since they remembered that this was a
woman of the South, and, therefore, one who doubtless understood
what she spoke of. The people of the Midi had been reared from
time immemorial on legends telling of the horrors of the earlier
pests.

Whatever terrors were felt by either prisoners or custodians,

women or men, were now, however, to be doubly, trebly intensified.
They were to see, here, upon this rising upland of sunburnt and,
now, rain-soaked grass, sights even more calculated to make their
hearts beat with apprehension, their nerves tingle, and their lips turn
more white.

Forth from the smitten, pestiferous city lying at their feet--that

city which now flared with a hundred fires lit to purify it, if possible--
there came those who could escape while still life remained, and
while the poisonous venom of the scourge had not reduced them to
helplessness. They came dragging themselves feebly if already
struck by the disease; swiftly if, as yet, the fever had not penetrated
their systems nor death set its mark upon them. Walking rapidly in
some cases, crawling in others; running, almost leaping, if able to do
so. Doing anything, thereby to flee away in the open; out into the
woods and plains and mountains--anything to leave behind the
accursed city in which the houses were empty or only filled with
corpses; the accursed streets in which the dead bodies of men and
women, of dogs and crows, lay in huddled masses.

A band of nuns passed first--their heads bound in cloths that had

been steeped in vinegar into which gunpowder had been soaked;
their holy garments trailing on the ground, their rosaries clattering
as they went along, their faces white with terror though not with
disease. These were good, pious women, many of them young, who,
until now, when the panic of dread had seized upon them, had
nursed the sick and dying under the orders of their saintly bishop,
Henri de Belsunce de Castlemoron, but who, at last, had yielded to
the fear that was upon all within Marseilles, and had fled. They had
fled from their cloisters out into the open, rushing away from the city
of death, shrieking to those who were stricken to keep off from them
in the name of God and all his Saints; even arming themselves with
what were called the "Sticks of St. Roch," namely, canes from eight
to ten feet long, wherewith to ward off and push aside the passers-
by and, especially, the dogs which were supposed to be thoroughly
infected from the dead bodies at which they sniffed and sometimes
tore. Nay, not supposed only, since the creatures had already
perished by hundreds from having done so.

Running by their side, endeavouring to keep up with those over

whom, but a little while ago, she had ruled with a stern, unbending
power, went the mother superior, a fat, waddling woman, whose
face may have been comely once, but was now drawn with fright
and terror. Yet--with perhaps some recollections left in her mind,
even now, of the sanctity and charity that should be the
accompaniment of her holy calling--she paused on seeing the group
of worn, sunburnt, and emaciated women sitting there under the
charge of their frightened warders, and asked who and what they
were?

"Galley slaves," one of these warders answered; "at least,

emigrants. They go to New France. Can we pass through the city,
think you, holy mother, or reach the ships without danger? Can we
go on to safety and pure breezes?"

"Alas!" the woman answered, gathering up her skirts even as she

spoke, so as to flee as swiftly as might be after her flock, which had
gone on without pausing when she herself did so. "Alas, there are
no ships. The galleys are moored outside 'tis true, but all else have
put to sea to escape. Turn back if you are wise. Ah!" she cried with a
scream, a shriek, as some other fugitives from the city passed near
her, their eyes chalky white, their faces yellow and blotched with
great livid carbuncles. "Oh, keep off! keep off!" And she waved her
long stick around her and then rushed precipitously after her band of
nuns.
 But still the refugees came forth, singly, in pairs, in families. Some
staggered under burdens which they bore, such as bags containing
food or jars holding water. Numbers of women carried not only
babes in their arms and folded to their breasts, but others strapped
on to their backs. Some men wheeled hand barrows before them
with their choicest household goods flung pell-mell into them; some,
even, had got rough vehicles drawn by horses or cows--in one or
two instances by dogs, and in another by a pig--by the side of which
they walked while their stricken relatives lay gasping within. Yet,
even as these latter passed along, that which was most distinctive in
their manner was the horror which those who still remained unstruck
testified for those who were stricken, yet whom the ties of blood still
prompted them to save. A son passed along with his aged mother
dying on the truck he pushed before him, yet he had bound his
mouth up with vinegar-steeped cloths so that her infected breath
should not be inhaled by him; a husband, whose wife was at the
point of death, bore, fastened on his chest, a small iron tray on
which smoked burning sulphur, so that he should inhale those
fumes. Others, too, carried flasks and bottles of spirituous liquors,
from which they drank momentarily; some smoked incessantly
enormous pipes full of rank, coarse tobacco, and drew into their
lungs as much of the fumes as they could bear.

There, too, passed flying domestics and servitors, upon whose

coarse hands sparkled rich and sumptuous rings never made to be
worn by such as they, and carrying in those hands strong boxes and
jewel boxes. None need have asked how they became possessed of
such treasures as these! Imagination would have told at once of
dead or dying employers, of dark houses rifled, and of robbery
successful.

Yet these fugitives were such as, up to now, had escaped the
deadly breath of the pest, and were not so horrible as those stricken
by that breath. These latter were too awful to behold as they
staggered along moaning, "I burn! I burn!" and then flung
themselves down to lick the rain-water off the grass beneath them,
or to thrust their parched tongues into rivulets formed by the recent
downpour. They flung themselves down, never, in many cases, to
stagger to their feet again. Exhausted they lay where they fell, and
so they died.

The stream of refugees ceased not. Under the rays of the now
risen moon they poured forth continuously from the flaming city
beneath them, their faces lit also by the crimson-illuminated sky
above. They came on in numbers, running or walking, breathlessly if
strong, staggering, falling, moaning, shrieking sometimes, if already
attacked by the pest.

And Marion Lascelles sitting up upon the sodden hill slope, her
hands holding back her matted hair so that the soft wind now
blowing from above should not cause it to obscure her eyes, saw all
these passers-by, and felt a horror in her soul that she had never
before known in her tempestuous life. While, also, she saw
something else, and whispered in the ears of the half inanimate
Laure what it was that she perceived. "Observe, dear one," she
muttered, "observe. The guards, all of them, the gaolers and
gendarmes move. They mix with that rushing crowd; see, they
disappear; almost, it seems, they dissolve into the night. One
understands what they have determined to do. They flee, too; they
dare not face this thing. They depart, leaving us here. The cowards!"
And if eyes as well as lips could hurl contemptuous curses at others,
the woman of the South hurled them now at the departing captors.

"For," she said a moment later, "the safety the creatures seek they
do not give us the opportunity of finding as well. They have left us
chained and manacled so that we, on our part, cannot escape."
 CHAPTER XVI

"I HAD NOT LIVED TILL NOW, COULD SORROW KILL"

The night wind rose as the hours went by, so that at last the cool
breezes brought ease, and, in a manner, restoration to those
unhappy women lying or sitting upon the slope of the hill which lay
to the north of Marseilles. Gradually, under its influence, many of
them began to feel more strength coming to their wasted and aching
limbs, while others, who up to now had been dazed and stupefied at
the end of their journey, began to understand that the long and
terrible march from Paris was at last concluded; that, henceforth,
there was to be no more dragging of weary, bleeding feet along
league after league of rough and stony roads.

Unhappily, however, as this fact dawned upon them, so did

another and more hideous one--the awful, ghastly fact that they had
but escaped from one terror to be surrounded by a second to which
the first was almost a trifle.

As their senses came back to many of them, such senses being

aroused by the continual excitement of the talk amongst those who
were already awake or had never slept since their arrival, they
grasped this fact, and became aware of what was now threatening
them. They grasped the fact that death in a more horrid garb than
that which it had previously worn had to be faced, and was around
them; close to them; and about to seize them in an awful embrace.

Some started to their feet shrieking as this knowledge dawned

upon them, while clanking their chains as they did so, and
endeavouring to tear from off their necks the loathsome carcan, or
collar, in their frenzy, or to rush away from where they were back to
the great plain through which they had passed but a day or so ago,
or up to the vine-clad heights of which they had caught a sight as
they drew near to the end of their journey. Anywhere! Anywhere,
away from this new terror which threatened them. Then, even as
they wailed aloud, while some cast themselves upon their knees and
prayed to be spared from the horrible contagion into which they had
advanced, the voice of Marion Lascelles was heard speaking to
them, counselling them as to what they should do, what measures
take to preserve themselves from this fresh calamity. And, because,
all along that dreary road which stretched from Paris in the north to
Marseilles in the south, this woman's strong, indomitable courage
and contempt for suffering and misfortune had cheered and
comforted them, they hearkened to her now. They welcomed,
indeed, any words that fell from her lips.

"Listen," she said, "my sisters in misery. Listen to me. Of what use
is it for each to try and wrest from off her neck the accursed carcan
that encloses it, to tear from off her wrists the accursed cordon that
binds her to her neighbour? It is impossible; not that they might be
thus easily parted with, did the warder rivet them to us in Paris. Yet,
how else have we progressed here but with them on; how
progressed along dusty roads, beneath the burning sun, the beating
rains, over mountains and across valleys. We have done this, I say
to you, yet now the night is fresh and cool."

"Thank God for that. For that," they murmured.

"Ay, thank Him for that. 'Tis well we do so, sinners as most of us
are. We need His help and blessing. But, hear me. Can we not also
retreat together, as we have advanced over all these leagues to this
plague-stricken spot? Can we not?"

But no more words were required from her; already they

understood and grasped her meaning. It was simple enough, yet,
heretofore, their despair and frenzy had prevented them from
conceiving that, together, they might escape from this place, as,
together, they had reached it.
 With cries of rejoicing and exultation they prepared to do what
she suggested; to flee at once from this awful spot. To join those
who were still pouring out of the city unceasingly, even though the
depth of the night was now upon them; to follow in the wake of
those who had already gone. They knew--those previous fugitives--
they must know--where to flee for safety; to follow them was to
reach that safety themselves.

Weak, enfeebled as they were, they prepared to act upon

Marion's advice; staggeringly they formed themselves once more
into the lines in which they had marched day after day and week
after week; they turned themselves about to unwind the tangled
chains which ran from the first woman of the chain-gang to the last,
and placed themselves in order to at once depart. And it seemed
easier to their poor bruised bodies, easier, too, to their aching
hearts, to thus set about these preparations for seeking safety since
there were now no longer brutal gendarmes nor custodians, nor
guards of any kind to lash them with whips or curse them with foul
oaths.

Wherefore they turned back, commencing at once to retrace the

road they had come and walking in the same order as they walked
from the first--since the position of none could be altered. And by
Marion's side was Laure, as ever.

"You are refreshed," the former said to her companion; "you can
accomplish this? Strive--oh! strive--poor soul, to be brave!
Remember, every step we take, every moment, removes us farther
and farther from the risk of this awful thing. Be brave, dear one,"
and, herself still strong and brave, unconquered and unconquerable,
she placed her arm around that of her more delicate fellow-prisoner
and helped her upon the way.

"I will be brave," Laure answered. "I will struggle to the end. My
heart is broken, death would be welcome--yet not such a death as
this. Oh! Marion, I do not desire to die thus--like those," and she
pointed to some of the awful yellow-faced victims who were being
wheeled or dragged along, or were staggering by themselves to the
mountains and open country. "Yet, surely," she added, "the risk is as
great here as in the city below, so long as we keep in their vicinity.
Is it not?"

"Ay, it is," the other answered. "Yet we will break off from them
ere long. Alas! these chains. If we were only free of them we could
all separate; you and I could climb that little hill together which rises
over there; we could go on and on until the feverous breath of the
pest was left behind. But we can do nothing. All must stay together."

Still they went on, however--not swiftly, because amongst them

there was not one, not even Marion herself, who could progress
otherwise than slowly, owing to the fatigue that was upon them after
their long march, and owing, also, to the weight of their irons, as
well as to the fact that they were almost famished. Their last meal
had been eaten at midday, and they had been promised a full one by
their late guardians on entering the gates of Marseilles. Yet, now,
they were retreating from Marseilles, and there were no guardians
left to provide for them. When, Marion wondered, would they ever
eat again; how would food be found for the mouths of all in their
company? There were still some twenty women left chained
together; how could they be fed?

Even, however, as she reflected on all this, another thought arose

in her mind; one that had had no existence in it for many hours, or,
indeed, days.

"Where is the men's chain-gang, I wonder?" she mused aloud.

"The men who, poor wretches, are in many cases our newly-made
husbands. Where can they be? They were ahead of us all the way;
therefore, since we have not passed them, and since, also, we
halted within musket-shot of the city, it follows that they, at least,
have entered the doomed place--are doomed themselves. Great
God! we who survive this are as like as not to be widows again
soon," and she laughed a harsh, strident laugh that had no mirth in
it, but was born of the bitterness within her.

Those words "our newly-made husbands" gave rise to thoughts in

Laure's own sad heart that she would willingly have stifled if she had
possessed the power to do so. They recalled memories that (when
she had not been too dazed--almost too delirious--to dwell upon
them during the horrors of the past six weeks) she had endeavoured
to dispel. Memories of the noble Englishman who had sacrificed his
existence for her--nay! if that villain Desparre had spoken truth, his
very life--and whose sacrifice had obtained for her no more than the
state of misery in which she was now plunged.

"Yet," she whispered, half to herself, half aloud, so that Marion

heard her words; "yet, almost I pray that he may be dead----"

"Your husband?" the other interrupted. "You pray that he may be

dead! He who gave up all for you--the man whom you love. Whom,
Laure, you know you love?" For still Marion insisted, as she had
insisted often enough before during the journey, that Laure had
come to love Walter Clarges.

"Yes--I even pray for that--sometimes," the girl answered. "For--

for if he lives, how doubly vile must he deem me. What must he
think of me, supposing--supposing that Desparre lied--that he was
not dead--that he was not even met by that villain and his
myrmidons--that the whole story was false!"

"What should he think!" exclaimed Marion, not, in truth, grasping

Laure's meaning. "What should he think?"

"What? Why think that but I used him for my own selfish
purposes to escape from marriage with Desparre, as, God forgive
me, was the case; and that, once he had left me alone in his home,
I next escaped from him. How can he know--how dream of what
befell me? Who was there to tell him of what happened in that
room? Even I, myself, know nothing of what occurred from the time
I fell prostrate at Desparre's feet, until I awoke a prisoner in that--
that prison, which I only left for this," and she cast her eyes
despairingly around upon her miserable companions and upon the
flying inhabitants of the stricken city who still went on and on, their
one hope being to leave the place behind.

But the brave heart, the strong mind of Marion Lascelles--neither

of which could be subdued by even that which now encompassed
them--would not for an instant agree to such hopelessness as her
companion expressed. Instead, she cried:

"Nay, nay. He would not do so. Believe that Desparre lied when he
said that your husband was dead, since how could such a creeping
snake as that slay such as he was, one so noble. Believe he lived,
and, thus living, returned to find you gone. But, in doing so----"

"He would hate, despise, loathe me. He would deem me what I

was, base and contemptible, and so, God help me! endeavour to
forget. He would remember nothing except that he had parted with
his freedom for ever to save so vile a thing as I."

"Again I say nay, Laure," and now Marion's voice sank even lower,
her tone became more deep. "Laure, I know the hearts of men--God
help me, too!--I have had cause to know them--bitter cause,
brought about sometimes by my own errors, sometimes by their
own wickedness. And I--I tell you, you have judged wrongly. This
man, this Englishman, loved you with his whole heart and soul; he
loves you still."

"Alas! alas! it cannot be," Laure murmured. "It is impossible."

"At first," Marion went on, "he may, it is true, deem that you used
him only as a tool. He may do so because no man who ever lived
has yet understood woman's nature--ever sounded the depths of
that nature. Therefore, not knowing, as they none of them know,
our hearts, he may at first believe, as you say, that you sacrificed his
existence to your salvation. Not understanding, not guessing in his
man's blindness that, as he made the sacrifice, so the love for him
sprang newborn into your heart. Is it not so, Laure? Here in the
midst of all these horrors with which we are surrounded, here with
death close at hand, with infection in the air, ready to seize on one
or all at any moment, answer me. Speak truth as you would speak it
on your death-bed. You love him--loved him from that moment?
Answer! Is it not so?"

"Yes," Laure said, faintly, her whisper being almost drowned in

the soft, cool breeze that came sweeping over them from the distant
mountain-tops of the Basses Alpes. "Yes, I loved him from the first--
from the moment when he took me to his house. Oh, God!" she
murmured, "when he told me that we must part, deeming that I
could never love him, almost I threw myself at his feet, almost I
rushed to his arms beseeching him to fold me in them, to stay by my
side for ever. And now--now--we shall never meet again."

"Never meet again, perhaps," said Marion, scorning to hold out

hopes to the other that she could not believe were ever likely to be
realised; "yet of one thing be sure, namely, that he will seek for you.
As time goes on he will learn the truth--how, I cannot tell, yet surely
he must learn it--and then--and then no power on earth, nothing
short of the will of God will prevent him from seeking for you."

"And finding me dead. Here, or in the new land to which we go."

"The new land to which we go!" Marion echoed, scornfully. "The

new land to which we go! I doubt if that will ever be. If it were not
for these cursed irons we should be free now--free for ever. We
could disperse singly, or in couples, wander forth over France, even
seek other lands. And--and you could write to him."

"Ah!" Laure exclaimed. "Write to him! To do that! Oh, Marion,

Marion, you are so strong, so brave! Set us free! Set us free! Set us
free!" Alas! that Marion should have spoken those words, or have let
them fall on Laure's ears, thus raising desires and expectations
never to be gratified. There was no freedom to come to them--none
from so awful a captivity as that which was now to enslave them.

For, even as Laure uttered her wail for freedom, which was born
of her companion's hopeful words, the atom of liberty they
possessed--the liberty of being able to remove from this fever-
tainted spot to some other that remained still unpoisoned by the
breath of the pestilence, although shackled and chained altogether--
was taken away.

There came up swiftly behind them a band of men; they were a

number of convicts, drawn from the galleys lying at the Quai de
Riveneuve, as well as several of the beggars of Marseilles, known as
"the crows:" beggars who were employed and told off to act under
the orders of the sheriffs in removing the dead from the streets, in
lighting nightly the fires to purge the city, and in fulfilling the duties
of the police--mostly dead themselves by this time.

And in command of them were two sheriffs.

"These are the women, the emigrants," one of the latter said to
the other. "'Twas certain they could not be very far behind the men."
Then the speaker, who was mounted, rode his horse up to where
this group of desolate, forlorn wanderers stood hesitating while
appalled by the sudden stoppage of their escape, and said--

"Good women, whither are you going? Your destiny is Marseilles,

en route for New France."

For a moment those unhappy women stood helpless and silent,

gazing into each other's worn faces, not knowing what answer to
make or what to say. In truth they were paralysed with the fear that
was upon them, namely, that they were about to be driven into the
infected city, paralysed also with grief at their escape being cut off.

"Answer," the Sheriff said, not speaking harshly. And then, with all
the eyes of her companions in misery fixed on her and bidding her
plainly enough to act as their mouthpiece, Marion said--

"Those who drove us from Paris here have fled in fear of the
contagion that is amongst you. We, too, have sought to flee away
from it. The law which condemned us to transportation to New
France, to be followed by our freedom, did not condemn us to this."

"You speak truth," the Sheriff said, his voice a grave and solemn,
yet not unkindly, one. "Yet you must go on with what you are sent
here for. And--and--we need women's help here, such help as
nursing and so forth. You must come with us and stay until the
ships, which have put to sea in fear, return to transport you to New
France."

"It is tyranny!" Marion Lascelles exclaimed. "Tyranny to force us

thus!"

"Not so," the Sheriff replied. "Not so. You will be treated well;
your freedom will begin at once. Your irons shall be struck off now.
Also, while you remain with us and work for us--heaven knows how
we require assistance--you shall have a daily wage and good food.
But--you must come."

"We shall die," Marion exclaimed, acting still as the spokeswoman

of all. "And our deaths will lie at your door."

But still the Sheriff spoke very gently, saying that, even so, they
must do as he bid them. Then, next, he ordered some of the
convicts to stand forward and remove their chains and collars, so
that even the short distance to be accomplished ere reaching the
city should be no more irksome than possible.

After which he said to the group of women, many of whom were

sobbing around him, some with fear of what they were about to
encounter, and some with joy at losing at last, their horrible, hateful
iron burdens.
 "Do not weep. Do not weep. Already is our once bright, joyous
city a vale of tears. Nay, there can be, I think, no more tears left for
us to shed. I myself can weep no more. I who, in the last week,
have buried my wife, my two daughters, and my little infant babe."

"Oh! oh!" gasped Marion and Laure and all the women standing
round who heard the bereaved man's words. "Oh! Unhappy man.
Unhappy man!"
 CHAPTER XVII

AN ARISTOCRATIC RESORT

The little watering-place of Eaux St. Fer, which stood on the slope
of a hill some few leagues outside Montpelier, and nearer than that
city to the southern sea-board, was very full this summer; so full,
indeed, that hardly could the visitors to it be accommodated with the
apartments they required. So full that, already it had incurred the
displeasure of many of those patrons--who were mostly of the
ancient nobility of France--at their being forced to rub shoulders
with, and also live cheek by jowl with, such common persons as--to
go no lower--those of the upper bourgeoisie. Yet it had to be done--
the doing of it could not be avoided; for this very year the waters of
Eaux St. Fer had bubbled forth a degree warmer than they had ever
been known to do before; they tasted more of saltpetre than any
visitor could recollect their having done previously, and tasted also
more unutterably nauseous; while marvellous cures of gout and
rheumatism, and complaints brought on by overeating and
overdrinking and late hours, as well as other indulgences, were
reported daily. Even at this very moment the gossips staying at The
Garland (the fashionable hostelry) were relating how Madame la
Marquise de Montesprit, who was noted for eating a pâté of snipe
every night of her life for supper, was already free from pain and
able to sit up in her bed and play piquet with the Abbé Leri, whose
carbuncles were fast disappearing from his face; while, too, the
Chevalier Rancé d'Irval had lost eight pounds of his terrible weight,
and the Vicomtesse de Fraysnes had announced that in another
week she would actually appear without her veil, so much improved
was her complexion. Likewise, it was whispered that, only a day or
so before, three casks of the atrociously tasting water had been sent
up to Paris to no less a person than the Regent himself.

Wherefore Eaux St. Fer was full to suffocation; dukes, duchesses,

and all the other members of what was even then called the old
régime, were huddled together pell-mell with bankers, merchants,
even eminent shopkeepers and tradesmen; and, except that in the
principal alley, or walk, it was understood that the nobility kept to
one side of it, and those whom they termed the "refuse" to the
other, one could hardly have told which were the people who
boasted the blood of centuries in their veins, and which were those
who, if they knew who their grandfathers were, knew no more. And,
after all, when one's blood is corrupted by every indulgence that
human weakness can give way to until the body is like a barrel, and
the legs are like bolsters, and the face is a mass of swollen impurity,
or as white as that of a corpse within its shroud, it matters very little
whether that blood is drawn from ancestors who fought at Ascalon
and Jerusalem or peddled vulgar wares in the lowest purlieus of
cities.

"Mon ami!" exclaimed one of the high-born dames, who kept to

the right side of the alley, to an aristocrat who sat on a bench
beneath a tree close by where one of the fountains of Eaux St. Fer
bubbled forth its waters, "Mon ami, you do not look well this
morning. Yet see how the sun shines around; observe how it shows
the wrinkles beneath the eyes of Mademoiselle de Ste. Ange over
there, and also the paint on the face of the old Marquis de Pontvert.
You should be gay, mon ami, this morning."

"I am not well," replied the personage whom she addressed.

"Neither in health nor mind. Sometimes I wish I were a soldier
again, living a life of----"
 "Neither in health nor mind!" the lady who had accosted him
repeated. "Come, now. That is not as it should be. Let us see. Tell
me your symptoms. First, for the health. What ails that?" and, as
she asked the question, she peered into the man's dull eyes with her
own large clear ones. Then she continued, "Remember, Monsieur le
Duc, that, although an arrangement once subsisting between us will
never come to a settlement now, we are still to be very good--
friends. Is it not so?" Yet, even as she asked the question, especially
as she mentioned the word "friends," she turned her face away from
him on the pretence of flicking off some dust from her farthest
sleeve, and smiled, while biting her full, red nether lip with her
brilliantly white teeth.

Then she turned back to him, saying: "Now for the health. What
is the worst?"

"Diane, I suffer. I burn----"

"Already!" she exclaimed. And the Marquise laughed aloud at her

own cruel joke; a merry little, rippling laugh, and one more befitting
a girl of twenty than a woman nearly double that age. And her blue
eyes flashed saucily--though some might, however, have said,
sinisterly. Then she begged the other's pardon, and desired him to
continue.

But, annoyed, petulant at her scoff, he would not do so; instead,

he turned his white face away from where she had taken a seat
beside him, and watched the other members of his own order
strolling about under the trees, their hats, when men, under their
arms, their dresses, when women, held up in many cases by little
page boys.

She, on her part, did not press him to continue. She had strolled
forth that morning from The Garland, where she had been fortunate
enough to secure rooms for herself and her maid, with the full
determination of meeting Monsieur le Duc Desparre and of
conversing with him on a certain topic, her own share in which
conversation she had rehearsed a thousand times in the last seven
months, and she meant to do so still; but as for his health, or his
mental troubles, she cared not one jot. Indeed, had Diane Grignan
de Poissy been asked what gift of Fate she most desired should be
accorded to her old lover at the present time, she would doubtless
have suggested that a long, lingering illness, which should prevent
him from ever again being able to enjoy, in the slightest degree, the
fortune and position he had lately inherited, would be most
agreeable to her. For this man sitting by her side had, in his poverty,
been her lover, he had accepted substantial offerings from her under
the guise of her future husband, and, in his affluence, had refused
to fulfil his pledge to her--a Grignan de Poissy by marriage, a Saint
Fresnoi de Buzanval by birth--a woman notorious, famous, for her
beauty even now!

No wonder she hated the "cadaverous infidel"--as often enough

she termed him in her own thoughts--the man now seated by her
side.

Her presence in this resort of the sick and ailing was, like that of
many others, simply for her own purpose. Some of those others
came to keep assignations; some to win money off well-to-do
invalids who, although rushing with swift strides to their tombs,
could not, nevertheless, exist without gaming; some to carry on here
the same life which they led in Paris, but which life there was now at
a standstill and would be so until the leaves began to fall in the
woods round and about the capital. As for her, Diane Grignan de
Poissy, she needed neither to drink unpleasant waters that tasted of
iron and saltpetre, nor to bathe in them, nor to follow any regimen;
though, to suit her own ends, she gave out that she did thus need to
do so. Instead, and actually, in all her thirty-eight years she had
never know either ache or pain or ailment, but had revelled always
in superb health, notwithstanding the fact that she had been a maid
of honour once at Versailles to a daughter of the old King--that now-
forgotten "Roi Soleil!"--and had taken part since in many of the
supper parties given by Philippe le Débonnaire.

Yet in spite of all, she was here, at Eaux St. Fer.

Presently she spoke again, saying in a soft, subdued voice, into

which she contrived to throw a contrite tone--

"Armand, dear friend, you are not going to quarrel with me for a
foolish word; a silly joke! Armand, the memories of the past brought
me here--to see you. I heard that you were suffering, and also--that-
-that--you--could not recover from the trick put upon you by that
girl--Laure Vauxc----"

"Silence!" he said, turning swiftly round on her. "Silence! Never

mention that name, that episode again in my hearing. It has
damned me in the eyes of Paris--of France--for ever. It has heaped
ridicule on me from which I can never recover. It is that--that--that--
which has broken me down. Neither Tokay, nor late nights--as I
cause it to be given out--nor----" He paused in his furious words,
then said a moment later, "Yet, so far as he, as she, are concerned, I
have paid the score. He is dead, she worse than dead."

"I know, I know," she murmured, her blue eyes almost averted,
so that he should not observe the glance that she felt, that she
knew, must be in them. "I know. Let us talk of it no more. Armand,
forget it."

"Forget it! I shall never forget it. What can I do to drive it from
my own thoughts or to drive the memory of my humiliation by that
beggar's brat from out the memory of men--of all Paris!"

"Ignore it. Again I say, forget. Thus you cause others to do so."
Then, as though she, at least, had no intention of saying aught that
might re-open, or help to re-open, the wounds caused to his vanity
by the events of the winter, she picked up idly a book he had been
glancing at when she drew near him, and which had fallen on to the
crushed-shell path of the alley as they conversed. She picked it up
and began turning its fresh white pages over.

"It amuses you?" she asked. "This thing?" And she read out the
title of one of Piron's latest productions, the comic opera, "Arlequin
Deucalion."

"One must do something--to pass the time. If we cannot see a

play, the next best thing is to read one."

"Alas," his companion exclaimed, "the plays of to-day are so

stupid--so puerile! No plot, no characters bearing truth to life. Now I!
Now I--ah!----" she broke off. "Look at that! And just as we speak,
too, of plays and playwriters. Behold, Papa de Crébillon. Mon Dieu!
What is the matter with him. He jabbers like a monkey. Yet still he
bows with grace--the grace of a gentleman."

"He suffers from gout atrociously," Desparre muttered.

In truth, the figure which now approached the pair seated in the
alley might have been either of the things which Diane Grignan de
Poissy had mentioned, a monkey or a gentleman. His face was a
drawn and twitching one, filled with innumerable lines and with, set
into it, deep sunken eyes, while his manners were--for the period--
perfect, his bow that of a courtier, and worthy of the most refined
member of the late Louis' court. For the rest, he was a man of over
forty years of age, and was renowned already as the author of the
popular dramas "Electra," "Atreus," and "Idomeneus." By his side
walked a lad, his son, Claude Prosper, destined to be better known
even than his father, though not so creditably.

"Good morning, Monsieur de Crébillon," cried the bright and

joyous Diane--bright and joyous as she assumed to be!--while the
dramatist drew near to where she and her companion were seated
beneath the acacias. "You are most welcome. 'Tis but now we were
talking of plays and dramas--lamenting, too----"
 "Ah! Madame la Marquise!" exclaimed the dramatist at the word
"lamenting," while his face twitched worse than before, since
assumed horror was added to it now. "Lamenting; no! no! madame!
lament nothing. At least there is, I trust, nothing to lament in our
modern drama."

"Ay, but there is though!" the Marquise said. Then assuming an

air of playful reproof, she went on: "How is it that you all miss plot in
your productions now? Why have you no secrets reserved for the
end--for the dénouement, for the last moment ere they make ready
to extinguish the lights. Eh! Answer me that. Hardy was the last.
Since then it is all pompous declamation, heavy versification, dull
pomp, and thunder. Hardy belonged to a past day, but at least he
excited his listeners, kept them awake for what was to come--what
they knew would come--what they knew must come."

"Madame has said it----" the dramatist bowed at this moment to

three ladies of the aristocracy who passed by, while Desparre rose
from his seat to greet them with stiff courtesy, and Diane Grignan de
Poissy smiled affectionately. "Hardy did belong to a past day. We
have changed all that, Corneille changed it." At the name of
Corneille he bowed again solemnly. "Yet," he said, "plot is no bad
thing. A little vulgar and straining, perhaps, yet sufficiently
interesting."

"Monsieur de Crébillon," Desparre exclaimed here, he not having

spoken a word before or acknowledged the dramatist's presence,
except by a glance, "you may be seated. There is a sufficiency of
room upon this bench."

With a gleam from his sunken eyes--which might have meant to

testify thanks to Monsieur le Duc, or might have meant to convey
contempt--was he not already a popular favourite among the highest
ranks of the aristocracy in Paris, and, even here, in Eaux St. Fer, one
of those to whom the fashionable side of the alley was thrown open
as a right!--he took his seat upon the vacant space on the other side
of the Marquise. Then, from out the hollow caverns of his eye-
sockets he regarded her steadily, while he said--

"Has Madame la Marquise by chance any protegé among her

many friends who has written a play with a plot? An embryo Hardy,
for example. Almost, if a poor poet might be permitted to have a
thought," and again his glance rested with contempt on Desparre; "I
would wager such to be the case. Some gentleman of her house
who deems that he has the sacred fire within him----"

"Supposing," interrupted Diane, "that one who is no poor

gentleman--but--but--as a matter of fact--myself--had conceived a
good drama, a--a--story so strange that she imagined it might
amuse--nay--interest an audience. Suppose that! Would it be
possible to----?"

"Madame," exclaimed le Duc Desparre, "have you turned

dramatist. Are you about to become a bluestocking?"

"Why not?" she asked, with a swift glance that met his; a glance
that reminded him--he knew not why--of the blue steely glitter of a
rapier. "Why not? Have not other women of France, of my class,
done such things?"

"Frequently," de Crébillon replied, answering the question

addressed to the other. "Frequently. Yet--yet--never that I can recall
in public, before the lower orders, the people. But to pass a soirée
away, to amuse one's friends in the country. That would be another
thing. A little comedy now,--with a brilliant, startling conclusion--"

"Mine is not a comedy!"

"Perhaps," questioned the dramatist, "a great classical tragedy?

With a dénouement such as was used in early days?"

"Nay, a drama. One of our own times."

 Still, as she spoke, she kept her eyes fixed full blaze upon de
Crébillon--yet--out of the side of them--she watched Monsieur le
Duc. And it might be that the sun was flickering the shadows of the
acacia leaves upon his face and, thereby, causing that face to look
now as though it were more yellow than white. She thought, at
least, that this was the tinge it was assuming. Yet--she might be
mistaken.

"Will you not tell us, Madame la Marquise, something of this plot,
at least?" the duke asked, "give us some premonition of what this
subject is. Or prepare us for what we are to expect when this drama
sees the day?"

And she knew that his voice trembled as he spoke. "Nay, nay,
Monsieur le Duc," the dramatist exclaimed, "to do that would destroy
the pleasure of the representation. It would remove expectancy--the
salt of such things." Then, turning to the Marquise, he asked: "Is
Madame's little play written, or, at present, only conceived? If so, I
should be ravished to read it; to myself alone, or to a number of
Madame's friends. There are many here, in Eaux St. Fer. And the
after dinner hours are a little dull; such an afternoon would
compensate for much."

"The plot is alone conceived. It is in the air only. Yet it is all here,"
and she tapped with her finger on her white forehead over which the
golden hair curled crisply.

"Will Madame la Marquise permit that I construct a little play for

the benefit of her friends? The saloon of The Garland will hold all
she chooses to invite. Doubtless, Monsieur le Duc will agree with me
that no more ravishing entertainment could be provided in Eaux St.
Fer, which is a little--one may say--a little triste--sometimes."

Heavily, stolidly, Monsieur le Duc bowed his head acquiescingly;

though, had it been in his power to do so, he would have thrown
obstacles in the way of the Marquise's little plot ever falling into de
Crébillon's hands. He had seen something in that steely glitter of her
blue eyes which disturbed him, though he scarcely knew why such
should be the case--yet, also, he could not forget that this was a
woman whom he had wronged in the worst way possible to wrong
such as she--by scorning her in his prosperity. Therefore he was
disturbed.

Half an hour later the alley was deserted, the visitors were going
to their dinners, it was one o'clock. The Duc had departed to his, the
Marquise Grignan de Poissy was strolling slowly towards The
Garland, there to partake of hers; de Crébillon and his son walked by
her side. And, as they did so, the dramatist said a word.

"Always," he remarked quietly, "I have thought that Madame la

Marquise was possessed of the deepest friendship for Monsieur le
Duc."

"Vraiment!" she exclaimed, transfixing him with her wondrous

eyes. "Vraiment! And has Monsieur de Crébillon seen fit to alter that
opinion?" To which the other made no answer, unless a shrug of his
lean shoulders was one.

CHAPTER XVIII

"THE ABANDONED ORPHAN"

PROLOGUE

The company had assembled in the saloon of the Garland and

formed as fashionable a collection of the upper aristocracy as any
which could perhaps be brought together outside Paris. Not even
Vichy, the great rival of Eaux St. Fer, could have drawn a larger
number of persons bearing the most high-sounding and aristocratic
names of France. For Eaux St. Fer was this year la mode, principally
because of that one extra degree of heat which the waters were
reported to have assumed, and, next, because of the rumour, now
accepted as absolute truth, that the Regent had casks and barrels of
those waters sent with unfailing regularity to Paris daily. And, still,
for one other reason, namely, that here the life of Paris might be
resumed; the intrigues, the flirtations, and the scandals of the
Maîtresse Vile--or of that portion of it which the highest aristocracy
of the land condescended to consider as Paris, namely, St. Germain,
the Palais Royal and Versailles--might be renewed; everything might
be indulged in, here as there, except the late hours of going to bed
and the equally late ones of rising, the overeating and overdrinking,
and the general wear and tear of already enfeebled constitutions.
Everything might be the same except these delights against which
the fashionable physicians so sternly set their faces.

"Do what you will," said those aristocratic tyrants, who (after
having preached up the place as one from which almost the elixir of
a new life might be drawn) had now followed their patients to the
spot thereby to guard over and protect them, and, also, to continue
to increase their bills. "Do all that you desire, save--a few things. No
late hours, no rich dishes, no potent wines, no heated rooms.
Instead, fresh air all day long in the valleys, or, above, on the hills;
the plain living of the country and long nights of rest; for drink, the
pure draughts of the springs and of milk. Thereby shall you all return
to Paris renovated and restored."

Yet they were careful not to add, "And ready to commence a fresh
career of dissipation which shall place you in our hands again and,
eventually, in the tombs of your aristocratic families."

Since, however, the visitors followed with more or less regularity

the prescribed regimen, the wholesomeness of the life was soon
apparent in renewed appetites, in cheeks which bloomed--almost,
though not quite--without the adventitious aid of paint and
cosmetiques; in nerves which ceased to quiver at every noise; in
nights which were passed in easy slumbers instead of being racked
by the pangs of indigestion. Wholesome enough indeed, revivifying
and strengthening; a life that recuperated wasted vitality and
prepared its possessors for a new season of dissipation and
debauchery at the Regent's court. Yet, withal, a deadly dull one!
Wherefore, when it was whispered that they were invited to "a
representation of a play" by "a lady of rank," which play was, as they
termed it themselves, "Un secret de la Comédie," since everyone in
Eaux St. Fer knew who the lady of rank was, they flocked to the
saloon of The Garland, and did so a little more eagerly than they
might otherwise have done, since there was also in the air a whisper
that, in the "representation," was something more than the mere
attempts of a would-be bluestocking to exhibit her talents for
dramatic construction.

De Crébillon possessed another talent besides an inventive genius

and a power of writing tragedies; he had a tongue which could
whisper smoothly but effectively, a glance which could suggest, and
an altogether admirable manner of exciting curiosity by a look alone.

So they were all gathered together now, two hours after their
early and salutary, but scarcely appetising, dinners had been eaten;
and they formed a mass of gorgeously-dressed, highbred men and
women, everyone of whom were known to the others, and everyone
of whose secrets were, in almost every case, also known to each
other. Yet, since each and all had a history, none being free from one
skeleton of the past (or present) at least, this was not a matter of
very much importance.

In costumes suited for the watering-places--yet made by the

astute hands of the workwomen of Mesdames Germeuil or Carvel,
Versac or Grandchamp, and produced under the equally astute eyes
of those authorities in dress--the ladies entered the room where the
representation was to take place, their pointed corsages and
bouffante sleeves, with their deep ruffles at the elbows, setting off
well their diamond-adorned head-dresses and their flowered robes.
As for the men, their dress was the dress of the most costly period
in France, not even excepting the days of the Great Monarch; their
court-swords gold-hilted; their lace at sleeve and breast and knee
worth a small fortune; their wigs works of art and of great cost.

"Mon ami," said the Marquise Grignan de Poissy to a youth who

approached her as she made her way through the press of her
friends, the young man being none other than her nephew, the
present bearer of the title of the de Poissys, "you are charming; your
costume is ravishing."

"Yet," she continued, "that is but a poor weapon to hang upon a

man's thigh," and she touched lightly with her finger the ivory and
gold hilt of the court-sword he carried by his side. "There is no
fighting quality in that."

"My dear aunt," exclaimed the young marquis, glancing at her

admiringly, for, even to him, the beauty of his late uncle's widow was
more or less alluring, "my dear aunt, it professes to have no fighting
qualities. It is only an ornament such as that," and he, too, put out a
finger and touched the baton, or cane, which she carried in her hand
in common with other ladies.

"Yet this," she said, "would strike a blow on any who molested
me, even though it broke in the attempt, being so poor a thing," and
her deep blue eyes gazed into his while sparkling like sapphires as
they did so.

"And," he replied, not understanding why those eyes so transfixed

him, or why, at the same time, he vibrated under their glance, "this
would run a man through who molested you, even though it broke in
the attempt, being so poor a thing," and he gave a little self-satisfied
laugh.
 "Would it? You mean that?"

"Without doubt, I mean it," he replied, his voice gradually

becoming grave, while he stared fixedly at her, as though not
comprehending. "Without doubt, I mean it." Then he said, a
moment later--speaking as though he had penetrated the meaning
she would convey: "My dear aunt Diane, is there by chance anyone
whom you wish run through? If so name him. It shall be done, to-
night, to-morrow, at dawn, for--for--the honour of our house and--
your bright eyes."

"No! No! No! No! I do but jest. Yet, come, sit by me, I--I am
nervous for the success of this play. I know the writer thereof----"

"So do I!" he interjected.

"And, see, all are in their places. De Crébillon comes on the

platform to speak the argument. Sit. Sit here, Agénor. Close by my
side." Then she muttered to herself so low that he could not hear
her words. "Almost I fear for that which I have done. Yet--
Vengeance confound him!--he merits it. And worse!"

An instant later the easy tones of de Crébillon were heard

announcing--as briefly and succinctly as though he were addressing
the players at the Français ere reading to them the plot of some new
drama by himself--what was to be offered to the audience.

Having opened his address with many compliments to those

assembled there and to their exalted rank, equalled only by their
capacity of judgment and their power to make or mar for ever that
which would now be submitted to them as the work of an illustrious
unknown, he went on--

"The scene is in two acts. The title is 'The Abandoned Orphan.'

The leading characters are Cidalise, who is the orphan, and Célie,
who has protected her. The first act exhibits the child's
abandonment, the second--but, no! Mesdames et Messieurs--that
must be left for representation, must be unrolled before you in the
passage of the play. Suffice it, therefore, if I say now that the work
has been hurriedly written so as to be presented before you for your
delectation; that the actors and actresses are the best obtainable
from a troupe now happily roaming in Provence; that, in effect, your
indulgence is begged by all. Mesdames et Messieurs, the play will
now begin."

Amidst such applause as so fashionable an audience as this felt

called upon to give, de Crébillon withdrew from the hastily-
constructed platform which had been erected in the great saloon--
which was not, in truth, very great--the blue curtain that was
stretched across from one side of the room to the other was
withdrawn, and the play began. Yet not before more than one
person in the audience had whispered to himself, or herself, "At
whom does she aim?" Not before, too, more than one had turned
their eyes inwardly with much introspection. And one who heard de
Crébillon's words gave a sigh, almost a gasp of relief. That one was
Monsieur le Duc Desparre. To his knowledge he had never
abandoned any infant.

There was, naturally, no scenery; yet, all the same, some

attempts had been made to aid dramatic illusion. The landlord had
lent some bits of tapestry to decorate the walls, and some chairs
and tables. In this case only the commoner sort were required, since
la scene depicted a room not much better than a garret. And in this
garret, as the curtain was pulled aside, was depicted Célie having in
her arms a bundle supposed to be the child, Cidalise, while on the
bed lay stretched the unhappy mother, dead.

With that interminable monologue, so much used by the French

dramatists of the period, and so tolerated by the audience of the
period, Célie delivered in blank verse a long recitation of what had
led to this painful scene. Fortunately, the actress who played this
part was (as happened often enough in those days, when the
wandering troupes were quite as good as those which trod the
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