"How can I divine? I never did her any wrong, but have always been most kind towards her. But the Bohemians are so strange! A superstition!--a nothing!--how can I tell? The poor wretch, perhaps, does her feelings great violence to carry on her machinations; but, after this week, I shall be very ready to meet her designs half way." At this moment the door closed suddenly. Bertha uttered a shriek of alarm. "Who has shut the door?" "The wind," said Arnold. The key turned twice in the lock. "They are locking us in," exclaimed Bertha. Arnold rushed to the door--shook it--but in vain. "Alas! I am lost! It is nearly night, and shut up here with you, at the end of the park!" "But the window!" cried Arnold. He hastened to it. He looked out, and saw no one. He tried to break it. Impossible! The lead-work was so close that it bent, but did not break, and the window was in a fixed and immovable frame. That which lighted the door at the farther end was similarly fastened. "_Mon Dieu!_ have mercy upon me!" said Bertha, falling upon her knees. CHAPTER XLVIII THE DOUBLE MURDER Iris, concealed in the path, had followed Bertha and Arnold from the beginning of their conversation until they entered the châlet. The thick clumps of box and holly concealed the Bohemian from all eyes. It was she who had started the kid and made it dart forth in the path before Bertha. After having cautiously approached the pavilion, Iris closed and double-locked the door, and then, triumphant, went to seek De Brévannes, who was waiting for her at some distance. If chance had not served the diabolical design of Iris in bringing Bertha and Arnold together, she would have had recourse to the ruse she had planned for inducing Bertha to go to the châlet under the pretext of meeting Pierre Raimond. De Brévannes was armed with a double-barrelled gun, and dressed in a shooting costume. The selection of that weapon took away every idea of premeditation; and nothing could be apparently more natural than his conduct. On returning from his sport he had _surprised_ his wife and M. de Hansfeld shut up together in a lone pavilion at nightfall: he killed them. Who could say there was no guilt in their interview? No one. Who could say that the door was closed on the outside? No one. In spite of his resolution, De Brévannes shuddered at the sight of Iris. The decisive moment had arrived. The Bohemian dissembled her ferocious joy, and said to him in a tone of deep grief,-- "I have followed them unsuspected, as I have done by your orders ever since they came here. They are talking in a low tone, and their lips almost touched. _He_ had his arm round your wife's waist; they suddenly entered the chalet, and then I closed the door, and came to you." De Brévannes made no reply; there was nothing heard but the jarring click of the two locks of his gun as he primed them, and his hasty steps as they trampled on the dry leaves which bestrewed the avenue.