“In two words, Monsieur,” she gasped, so soon as she had regained her breath. “When once the terms are settled, which will be to-morrow, or perhaps even yet to-day, the girl will be delivered to her anxious and loving uncle, none the worse for her little visit here, where she is quite as safe as in your bed in the Rue du Chantre,” and she paused again to catch her breath. “A day or two after that, M. Briquet will have the honor of leading her to the altar, whither, since she believes you dead, she will accompany him without resistance. And what a bride she will make--so plump, so warm, so rosy, so adorable! Ah, how I envy that happy man!” and she smacked her lips, like a glutton over a choice morsel. I was pacing up and down the wall. I tore at my chain. In that moment, I would have sold my soul to get my fingers about her neck--scraggy, yellow, seamed--God, how I would have twisted it! “You hag!” I said between my teeth. “You shall burn in hell for this. Pray God it may be I who send you there!” She was screaming with laughter. “Oh, oh,” she gasped, “that I should have lived to see this! And he was going to kill me with that sword of his!” Again she was forced to stop, and sat for some minutes rocking back and forth, shaking with laughter. I glared at her and cursed her. If there be merit in curses that come from the very bottom of the soul, then is she damned eternally. CHAPTER XI TORTURE BUT this devil did not heed my curses. Perhaps she knew herself damned already, and so feared God nor man. So, seeing her squatting laughing there, my wrath choked itself out, and I stood silent, hot with hate. “Go on, Monsieur,” she screamed. “Do not stop, I beg of you. Oh, the delight of this moment!” I bit my lips to keep them silent. That I, Pierre le Moyne, should be here, a dupe, a gull, a puppet, a fool, a make-sport for this creature! “It is sublime,” she gasped, “this jest! Everything has played into my hands so nicely, and at last it is to be my turn. I have waited fifteen years for my turn, Monsieur, and now it has come. I think I shall tell you. It is too good to keep to myself; and then, too, I know the secret will be as safe with you as in the tomb,” and she paused to laugh again. “Those two creatures of d’Argenson endeavored to learn something about me, I’ll wager.” “Yes,” I said, “but they found very little.” “Mère Fouchon knows how to cover her steps,” and the woman chuckled grimly. “The gendarmerie think themselves very acute, but there are others who are sharper. How could they suspect that Mère Fouchon, twenty years ago, was Madame Basarge, housekeeper for M. and Mme. Charles Ribaut, and their brother, that very respectable M. Jacques Ribaut, whom we both love so dearly?” She saw my look of dazed astonishment, and smiled again, still more grimly.