in her high-backed chair with a majestic air which impressed Edward Heathcote. Her plainly fashioned black silk gown and India muslin fichu recalled Delaroche's famous picture of Marie Antoinette, and her cast of countenance in some wise resembled that of the martyred queen; but the features were more perfect in their harmony, the outline was more statuesque. In a word, the Baroness had been lovelier than the Queen.
She motioned Heathcote to a chair on the opposite side of the hearth.
"You are interested in tracing the murderer of my son," she said. "That is strange—after ten years—and you an Englishman! What concern can you have in the fate of that man?"
There was the faintest quiver in her voice as she spoke of her son, otherwise her tones were clear and self-possessed; her large dark eyes contemplated the stranger with calmest scrutiny.
"That is in some wise my secret, Madame," replied Heathcote. "I will be as frank with you as I can; but there are motives which I must keep to myself until this investigation of mine has come to an end—until I can tell you that I have found the murderer of Marie Prévol, that I have proof positive of his guilt."
"And then, Monsieur—what then?" asked the Baroness.
"Madame, it is perhaps you who should be the arbiter of the murderer's fate; in the event of such evidence as may be conclusive to you and me being also strong enough to insure his conviction by a French jury. French jurymen are so merciful, Madame, and your judges so full of sentiment. They would perhaps regard the death of those two young people—slain in the flower of their youth—as an outbreak of jealous feeling for which the murderer was to be pitied rather than punished. The law is always kind to the shedders of blood. It is the child who steals a loaf, or the journalist who by some carelessly edited paragraph wounds the fine feelings of our aristocracy—it is for such as these there is no mercy. But in the event of my being able to find the assassin, and to furnish conclusive evidence of his guilt, what would be your line of conduct, Madame?"
The Dowager was slow to reply. She waited with fixed brows, meditative, absorbed, for some moments.
"There was a time," she said at last, "when I should have been quick to reply to such a question—when I thirsted for the blood of my son's murderer. Yes, when my parched lips longed to drink that blood, as the savage laps the life-stream of his foe. But years have worked their chastening influence—years given up to religious exercises, mark you, Monsieur, not wasted upon the frivolities of this world. I have sought for consolation from no carnal sources. Pleasure has never crossed the threshold of my dwelling since my son's corpse was carried in at my door. Some people try to forget their griefs; they steep themselves
