“Tell me about it, father; I have heard my mother speak of it as an ancient relic, such as comes out of the tombs of monarchs, and once I saw one like the thing she described.” “Where? when—who had it? tell me its form and color. There was but one such in the world; treasures of wisdom are locked up in that ring! Therese, Therese, the ring is gone! It is gone! The Talisman, which gives happiness to me and mine, but misery to all others! Alas! until that is found, I am nothing. Worse than that, worse than that. I know full surely that it will bring sorrow and death to any hand that wears it! Describe to me, Therese, the ring you saw.” “It was a serpent of twisted gold, father, holding a beetle, cut from some green stone, in its coils. The beetle was covered with strange characters.” The prisoner started forward in the darkness and grasped Marguerite by the arm. “It is my ring—It is my ring! tell me where you saw it!” “Father, I saw it on the hand of Queen Marie Antoinette.” The prisoner gasped for breath. Even in that dim light Marguerite could see the glitter of his eyes. “She wears it and it is cursing her. All France is in mad rebellion. Ah, now I understand how the poison has been working! Therese, where is the queen?” “At Versailles.” “I know where that is—she is there—and the ring? Go away, Therese, I want to think. I want to be still.” Marguerite went back to her bed and had hardly closed her eyes, when that shadowy old man crept softly down the stair-case and was gone. CHAPTER LXIII. SEARCHING FOR THE SERPENT RING. The Queen of France nearly lost her courage when news reached her of the storming of the Bastille, but she kept bravely up in presence of the court, and only indulged in sad forebodings when a moment of solitude was given her. One evening as the sun went down, she escaped from her ladies and went alone into the park. Finding a secluded seat she fell into a painful reverie, and gave way to it until the new moon dropped down among the purplish whiteness of the clouds, from which all the scarlet and gold had died softly out, and hung there like a golden sickle, waiting for a harvest of stars. Then Marie Antoinette remembered the hour, and how far she was from the palace, with a little thrill of fear. She gathered the shawl over her head, and, holding its shadowy lace to her bosom with one hand, went out into the Park, and walked swiftly away. Everything was still as death; the birds had ceased their soft fluttering among the leaves; and all the pretty animals had crept away to their coverts among the ferns and undergrowth.