Laroche. And then you were properly buried, and not by me either, nor at
my cost, curse you again. You are dead, I tell you!' She looked at him
as she looked at you the other day, dazed and spectre-like, and said:
'Henri, I gave up my life once to a husband to please my brother.

"He was a villain, my brother. I gave it up a second time to please you,
and because I loved you. I left behind me name, fortune, Paris, France,
everything, to follow you here. I was willing to live here, while you
lived, or till you should be free. And you curse me--you dare to curse
me! Now I will give you some cause to curse. You are a devil--I am a
sinner. Henceforth I shall be devil and sinner too.' With that she left
him. Since then she has been both devil and sinner, but not in the way
he meant; simply a danger to the safety of this dangerous community;
a Louise Michel--we had her here too!--without Louise Michel's high
motives. Gabrielle Rouget may cause a revolt of the convicts some day,
to secure the escape of Henri Durien, or to give them all a chance. The
Governor does not believe it, but I do. You noticed what I said about
the Morgue, and that?"

Shorland paced up and down the room for a time, and then said: "Great
heaven, suppose that by some hideous chance this woman, Gabrielle Rouget,
or Lucile Laroche, should prove to be Freeman's wife! The evidence is so
overwhelming. There evidently was some trick, some strange mistake,
about the Morgue and the burial. This is the fourteenth of January;
Freeman is to be married on the twenty-sixth! Monsieur, if this woman
should be his wife, there never was brewed an uglier scrape. There is
Freeman--that's pitiful; there is Clare Hazard--that's pitiful and
horrible. For nothing can be done; no cables from here, the Belle
Sauvage gone, no vessels or sails for two weeks. Ah well, there's only
one thing to do--find out the truth from Gabrielle if I can, and trust in