Placing both hands upon the shoulders of La Corriveau, she looked wildly in her face, exclaiming in a half exultant, half piteous tone, "Is it done? Is it really done? I read it in your eyes! I know you have done the deed! Oh, La Corriveau!"
The grim countenance of the woman relaxed into a half smile of scorn and surprise at the unexpected weakness which she instantly noted in Angelique's manner.
"Yes, it is done!" replied she, coldly, "and it is well done! But, by the manna of St. Nicholas!" exclaimed she, starting from the chair and drawing her gaunt figure up to its full height, while her black eyes shot daggers, "you look, Mademoiselle, as if you repented its being done. Do you?"
"Yes! No! No, not now!" replied Angelique, touched as with a hot iron. "I will not repent now it is done! that were folly, needless, dangerous, now it is done! But is she dead? Did you wait to see if she were really dead? People look dead sometimes and are not! Tell me truly, and conceal nothing!"
"La Corriveau does not her work by halves, Mademoiselle, neither do you; only you talk of repentance after it is done, I do not! That is all the difference! Be satisfied; the lady of Beaumanoir is dead! I made doubly sure of that, and deserve a double reward from you!"
"Reward! You shall have all you crave! But what a secret between you and me!" Angelique looked at La Corriveau as if this thought now struck her for the first time. She was in this woman's power.
She shivered from head to foot. "Your reward for this night's work is here," faltered she, placing her hand over a small box. She did not touch it, it seemed as if it would burn her. It was heavy with pieces of gold. "They are uncounted," continued she. "Take it, it is all yours!"
La Corriveau snatched the box off the table and held it to her bosom. Angelique continued, in a monotonous tone, as one conning a lesson by rote,--"Use it prudently. Do not seem to the world to be suddenly rich: it might be inquired into. I have thought of everything during the past night, and I remember I had to tell you that when I gave you the gold. Use it prudently! Something else, too, I was to tell you, but I think not of it at this moment."
"Thanks, and no thanks, Mademoiselle!" replied La Corriveau, in a hard tone. "Thanks for the reward so fully earned. No thanks for your faint heart that robs me of my well-earned meed of applause for a work done so artistically and perfectly that La Brinvilliers, or La Borgia herself, might envy me, a humble paysanne of St. Valier!"
La Corriveau looked proudly up as she said this, for she felt herself to be anything but a humble paysanne. She nourished a secret pride in her heart over the perfect success of her devilish skill in poisoning.
"I give you whatever praise you desire," replied Angelique, mechanically. "But you have not told me how it was done. Sit down again," continued she, with a touch of her imperative manner, "and tell me all and every incident of what you have done."
"You will not like to hear it. Better be content with the knowledge that your rival was a dangerous and a beautiful one." Angelique looked up at this. "Better be content to know that she is dead, without asking any more."
"No, you shall tell me everything. I cannot rest unless I know all!"
"Nor after you do know all will you rest!" replied La Corriveau slightingly, for she despised the evident trepidation of Angelique.
"No matter! you shall tell me. I am calm now." Angelique made a great effort to appear calm while she listened to the tale of tragedy in which she had played so deep a part.
La Corriveau, observing that the gust of passion was blown over, sat down in the chair opposite Angelique, and placing one hand on the knee of her listener, as if to hold her fast, began the terrible recital.
She gave Angelique a graphic, minute, and not untrue account of all she had done at Beaumanoir, dwelling with fierce unction on the marvellous and sudden effects of the aqua tofana, not sparing one detail of the beauty and innocent looks of her victim; and repeating, with a mocking laugh, the deceit she had practised upon her with regard to the bouquet as a gift from the Intendant.
Angelique listened to the terrible tale, drinking it in with eyes, mouth, and ears. Her countenance changed to a mask of ugliness, wonderful in one by nature so fair to see. Cloud followed cloud over her face and eyes as the dread recital went on, and her imagination accompanied it with vivid pictures of every phase of the diabolical crime.
When La Corriveau described the presentation of the bouquet as a gift of Bigot, and the deadly sudden effect which followed its joyous acceptance, the thoughts of Caroline in her white robe, stricken as by a thunderbolt, shook Angelique with terrible emotion.
But when La Corriveau, coldly and with a bitter spite at her softness, described with a sudden gesticulation and eyes piercing her through and through, the strokes of the poniard upon the lifeless body of her victim, Angelique sprang up, clasped her hands together, and, with a cry of woe, fell senseless upon the floor.
"She is useless now," said La Corriveau, rising and spurning Angelique with her foot. "I deemed she had courage to equal her wickedness. She is but a woman after all,--doomed to be the slave of some man through life, while aspiring to command all men! It is not of such flesh that La Corriveau is made!"
La Corriveau stood a few moments, reflecting what was best to be done.
All things considered, she decided to leave Angelique to come to of herself, while she made the best of her way back to the house of Mere Malheur, with the intention, which she carried out, of returning to St. Valier with her infamous reward that very day.
