before Jo could catch him.

All night, alone, the murderer struggled with death over the body of the
lawyer who had saved his life.




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SEIGNEUR GIVES A WARNING

Rosalie had watched a shut door for five days--a door from which, for
months past, had come all the light and glow of her life. It framed a
figure which had come to represent to her all that meant hope and soul
and conscience-and love. The morning after St. Jean Baptiste's day she
had awaited the opening door, but it had remained closed. Ensued
watchful hours, and then from Jo Portugais she had learned that M'sieu'
had been ill and near to death. She had been told the weird story of the
medicine-man and the ghostly voice, and, without reason, she took the
incident as a warning, and associated it with the man across the way.
She was come of a superstitious race, and she herself had heard and seen
things of which she never had been able to speak--the footsteps in the
church the night she had screwed the little cross to the door again; the
tiny round white light by the door of the church; the hood which had
vanished into the unknown. One mystery fed another. It seemed to her as
if some dreadful event were forward; and all day she kept her eyes fixed
on the tailor's door.

Dead--if M'sieu' should die! If M'sieu' should die--it needed all her