"Begone, I say, to that hell from hence you have come." "Then I go not alone!" was the strange response, and there rung through the chamber a shriek of agony, and with it mingled the strange demoniac laughter of the little man in black. The listeners heard also the stamping of his feet, and exclamations of rage; then all became still--terribly _still_. When the door, which had hitherto defied their efforts to force it, was opened, the stranger could nowhere be found; he had disappeared, hat, stick, spectacles and all; but they found Ninon, and she was no more. The coverlet and other clothes were disordered, the silk hangings torn; the bed bore evidence that a fierce struggle had taken place; but great was the astonishment of all on beholding the rapid change that came over her remains, even while they gazed on them. They were no longer those of the seeming young and lovely beauty they had known so long, but were turning fast into those of an extremely aged person. The oval face became haggard; the smooth forehead a mass of wrinkles; the pearly teeth disappeared; the lovely tresses of silky brown turned into a few white straggling hairs, and the plump pretty hands became shrivelled and yellow. Thus within one minute the remains of the once enchanting Ninon turned into those of an old--hideously old--woman, who had died of strangulation, for on her withered neck remained several marks, made by the ferocious clutch of that black stranger, who could never more be traced. This was on the evening of the 17th of October, 1706. CHAPTER XII. DISCOVERED. I had been disguised us a _soubrette_ for five days when those terrible events, by which I lost my love, and nearly my life, and had to leave the chateau, occurred in rapid succession. On the evening after we had listened to the story of Ninon, I was seated with Jacqueline in a secluded bower of the garden. The atmosphere was oppressively warm, and I had removed alike the large linen cap and the false curls with which Angelique had supplied me; thus, unfortunately, no one who saw me could for a moment have doubted the sex of Basile, the sham paysanne from the Morbihan. Jacqueline reclined with her head upon my shoulder, and while seated hand in hand, I was speaking of the apparent hopelessness of our future, when she interrupted me by saying, "Remember, Basil, that at our age nothing is hopeless either in fortune or in love." "True," I repeated, tremulously, while gazing tenderly into her clear and beautiful eyes; "yet, ere I saw you, love Jacqueline, at times I was already sick of life." "Sick of life! Your world in England must be a horrid place, if people weary of it so soon." "You mistake me. Every heart, as I said to your aunt the other night, has some secret sorrow, and I have mine--a lost position. Bravely did I bear the cross till I was taken prisoner----" "Do you deem yourself such?"