"See!" he said, as she entered, "see, the fool suffered himself to be walled up there in silence. There let him die in agony. You, madam, may live as long as you please in the Bastille, _au secret_." She saw that all was lost--her lover's sacrifice was made--she could not save him! Should she, by a weak divulging of the truth, render his grand devotion fruitless? Never! Her pale cheek did not turn one shade the paler, but her keen eye flashed living fire, and her beautiful lip writhed with loathing and scorn irrepressible. "It is thou who art the fool!" she said, "who hast made all this coil, to wall up a poor cat in a cupboard, as it is thou who art the base knave and shameless pandar, who hast attempted to do murther, and all to sell thine own wife to a corrupt and loathsome tyrant!" All stood aghast at her fierce words, uttered with all the eloquence and vehemence of real passion, but none so much as Rose, who had never beheld her other than the gentlest of the gentle. Now she wore the expression, and spoke with the tone of a young Pythoness, full of the fury of the god. She sprung forward as she uttered the last words, extricating herself from the slight hold of the astonished officers, and rushed toward her cowed and craven husband. "But in all things, mean wretch," she continued, in tones of fiery scorn, "in all things thou art frustrate--thy vengeance is naught, thy vile ambition naught, thyself and thy king, fools, knaves, and frustrate equally. And now," she added, snatching the dagger which Raoul had given her from the scabbard, "now die, infamous, accursed pandar!" and with the word she buried the keen weapon at one quick and steady stroke to the very hilt in his base and brutal heart. Then, ere the corpse had fallen to the earth, or one hand of all those that were stretched out to seize her had touched her person, she smote herself mortally with the same reeking weapon, and only crying out in a clear, high voice, "Bear witness, Rose, bear witness to my honor! Bear witness all that I die spotless!" fell down beside the body of her husband, and expired without a struggle or a groan. Awfully was she tried, and awfully she died. Rest to her soul if it be possible. The caitiff Marquis de Ploermel perished, as she had said, in all things frustrated; for though his vengeance was in very deed complete, he believed that it had failed, and in his very agony that failure was his latest and his worst regret. On the morrow, when St. Renan returned not to his home, the page gave the alarm, and the fatal wall was torn down, but too late.