The chanson died away as she stood there, and still the light was burning
in the shop opposite. A thought suddenly came to her. She would go over
and see if the old housekeeper, Margot Patry, had gone to bed. Here was
the solution to the problem, the satisfaction of modesty and propriety.

She crossed the street quickly, hurried round the corner of the house,
and was passing the side-window of the shop, when a crack in the shutters
caught her eye. She heard something fall on the floor within. Could it
be that the tailor and M'sieu' were working at so late an hour? She had
an irresistible impulse, and glued her eye to the crack.

But presently she started back with a smothered cry. There by the great
fireplace stood Louis Trudel picking up a red-hot cross with a pair of
pincers. Grasping the iron firmly just below the arms of the cross, the
tailor held it up again. He looked at it with a wild triumph, yet with a
malignancy little in keeping with the object he held--the holy relic he
had stolen from the door of the parish church. The girl gave a low cry
of dismay.

She saw old Louis advance stealthily towards the door of the shop leading
into the house. In bewilderment, she stood still an instant, then, with
a sudden impulse, she ran to the kitchen-door and tried it softly. It
was not locked. She opened it, entered quickly, and found old Margot
standing in the middle of the room in her night-dress.

"Oh, Rosalie, Rosalie!" cried the old woman, "something's going to
happen. M'sieu' Trudel has been queer all evening. I peeped in the key-
hole of the shop just now, and--"

"Yes, yes, I've seen too. Come!" said Rosalie, and going quickly to the