His reply was a whisper, and his face twitched with pain:
"Not--with Bigot."

I gave him some cordial, which he was inclined to refuse. It
revived him, but I saw he could live only a few hours. Presently
he made an effort. "I will tell you," he whispered.

"Tell me first of my wife," said I. "Is she alive?--is she alive?"

If a smile could have been upon his lips then, I saw one
there--good Voban! I put my ear down, and my heart almost stopped
beating, until I heard him say, "Find Mathilde."

"Where?" asked I.

"In the Valdoche Hills," he answered, "where the Gray Monk
lives--by the Tall Calvary."

He gasped with pain. I let him rest awhile, and eased the
bandages on him, and at last he told his story:


"I am to be gone soon. For two years I have wait for the good
time to kill him--Bigot--to send him and his palace to hell. I can
not tell you how I work to do it. It is no matter--no. From an old
cellar I mine, and at last I get the powder lay beneath him--his
palace. So. But he does not come to the Palace much this many
months, and Madame Cournal is always with him, and it is hard to
do the thing in other ways. But I laugh when the English come in
the town, and when I see Bigot fly to his palace alone to get his