But if he hoped thereby to terrify the lover into discovering himself, and so convicting his fair and innocent wife, the villain was deceived. Raoul heard every word--knew his fate--knew that one word, one motion would have saved him; but that one word, one motion would have destroyed the fair fame of his Melanie. The memory of the death of that unhappy Lord of Kerguelen came palpably upon his mind in that dread moment, and the comments of his dead father. “I, at least,” he muttered between his hard set teeth, “I at least will not be evidence against her. I will die silent--_fiel hasta, la muerte!_” And when the brick and mortar were piled by the hands of the unconscious grooms, and when the fatal trowels clanged and jarred around him, he spake not--stirred not--gave no sign. Even the savage wretch, De Ploermel, unable to believe in the existence of such chivalry, such honor, half doubted if he were not deceived, and the cupboard were not untenanted by the true victim. Higher and higher rose the wall before the oaken door; and by the exclusion of the light of the many torches by which the men were working, the victim must have marked, inch by inch, the progress of his living immurement. The page, Jules, had climbed in silence to the window’s ledge, and was looking in, an unseen spectator, for he had heard all that passed from without, and suspected his lord’s presence within the fatal precinct. But as he saw the wall rise higher--higher--as he saw the last brick fastened in its place solid, immovable from within, and that without strife or opposition, he doubted not but that there was some concealed exit by which St. Renan had escaped, and he descended hastily and hurried homeward. Now came the lady’s trial--the trial that shall prove to De Ploermel whether his vengeance was complete. She was led in with Rose, a prisoner. _Lettres de cachet_ had been obtained, when the treason of some wretched subordinate had revealed the secret of her intended flight with Raoul; and the officers had seized the wife by the connivance of the shameless husband. “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 Bastile, _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 has attempted to do murther, and all to sell thine own wife to a corrupt and loathsome tyrant!”