"Bravo!" exclaimed Cadet, encouragingly, "come, show the way, and we will get the tools in a trice! I always heard there was a private way underground to the old tower. It never stood its master in better stead than now; perhaps never worse if it has let in the murderer of this poor girl of yours."
Bigot rose up, very faint and weak; Cadet took his arm to support him, and bidding him be firm and not give way again at sight of her dead body, led him back to the chamber of death. "Let us first look around a moment," said he, "to find, if possible, some trace of the hellish assassins."
The lamps burned brightly, shedding a glare of light over every object in the secret chamber.
Cadet looked narrowly round, but found little trace of the murderers. The drawers of the escritoire stood open, with their contents in great disorder, a circumstance which at once suggested robbers. Cadet pointed it out to Bigot with the question:
"Kept she much money, Bigot?"
"None that I know of. She asked for none, poor girl! I gave her none, though I would have given her the King's treasury had she wished for it."
"But she might have had money when she came, Bigot," continued Cadet, not doubting but robbery had been the motive for the murder.
"It may be, I never questioned her," replied Bigot; "she never spoke of money; alas! all the money in the world was as dross in her estimation. Other things than money occupied her pure thoughts."
"Well, it looks like robbers: they have ransacked the drawers and carried off all she had, were it much or little," remarked Cadet, still continuing his search.
"But why kill her? Oh, Cadet, why kill the gentle girl, who would have given every jewel in her possession for the bare asking?"
"Nay, I cannot guess," said Cadet. "It looks like robbers, but the mystery is beyond my wit to explain. What are you doing, Bigot?"
Bigot had knelt down by the side of Caroline; he lifted her hand first to his lips, then towards Cadet, to show him the stalk of a rose from which the flower had been broken, and which she held with a grip so hard that it could not be loosened from her dead fingers.
The two men looked long and earnestly at it, but failed to make a conjecture even why the flower had been plucked from that broken stalk and carried away, for it was not to be seen in the room.
The fragment of a letter lay under a chair. It was a part of that which La Corriveau had torn up and missed to gather up again with the rest. Cadet picked it up and thrust it into his pocket.
The blood streaks upon her white robe and the visible stabs of a fine poniard riveted their attention. That that was the cause of her death they doubted not, but the mute eloquence of her wounds spoke only to the heat. It gave no explanation to the intellect.
The whole tragedy seemed wrapped in inexplicable mystery.
"They have covered their track up well!" remarked Cadet. "Hey! but what have we here?" Bigot started up at the exclamation. The door of the secret passage stood open. La Corriveau had not closed it after her when ****** her escape. "Here is where the assassins have found entrance and exit! Egad! More people know the secret of your Chateau than you think, Bigot!"
They sprang forward, and each seizing a lamp, the two men rushed into the narrow passage. It was dark and still as the catacombs.
No trace of anything to the purpose could they perceive in the vaulted subterranean way to the turret.
They speedily came to the other end; the secret door there stood open also. They ascended the stairs in the tower, but could see no trace of the murderers. "It is useless to search further for them at this time," remarked Cadet, "perhaps not safe at any time, but I would give my best horse to lay hands on the assassins at this moment."
Gardeners' tools lay around the room. "Here," exclaimed Cadet, "is what is equally germane to the matter, and we have no time to lose."
He seized a couple of spades and a bar of iron, and bidding Bigot go before him with the lights, they returned to the chamber of death.
"Now for work! This sad business must be done well, and done quickly!" exclaimed Cadet. "You shall see that I have not forgotten how to dig, Bigot!"
Cadet threw off his coat, and setting to work, pulled up the thick carpet from one side of the chamber. The floor was covered with broad, smooth flags, one of which he attacked with the iron bar, raised the flagstone and turned it over; another easily followed, and very soon a space in the dry brown earth was exposed, large enough to make a grave.
Bigot looked at him in a sort of dream. "I cannot do it, Cadet! I cannot dig her grave!" and he threw down the spade which he had taken feebly in his hand.
"No matter, Bigot! I will do it! Indeed, you would only be in my way. Sit down while I dig, old friend. Par Dieu! this is nice work for the Commissary General of New France, with the Royal Intendant overseeing him!"
Bigot sat down and looked forlornly on while Cadet with the arms of a Hercules dug and dug, throwing out the earth without stopping for the space of a quarter of an hour, until he had made a grave large and deep enough to contain the body of the hapless girl.
"That will do!" cried he, leaping out of the pit. "Our funeral arrangements must be of the briefest, Bigot! So come help me to shroud this poor girl."
Cadet found a sheet of linen and some fine blankets upon a couch in the secret chamber. He spread them out upon the floor, and motioned to Bigot without speaking. The two men lifted Caroline tenderly and reverently upon the sheet. They gazed at her for a minute in solemn silence, before shrouding her fair face and slender form in their last winding-sheet. Bigot was overpowered with his feelings, yet strove to master them, as he gulped down the rising in his throat which at times almost strangled him.