Thereafter Ste. Marie occupied himself with watching idly the movements of the black cat, and, as he watched, something icy cold began to grow within him, a sensation more terrible than he had ever known before.  He found himself shivering as if that summer day had all at once turned to January, and he found that his face was wet with a chill perspiration.

When the girl at length returned she found him lying still, his face to the wall.  The black cat was in her path as she crossed the room, so that she had to thrust it out of the way with her foot, and she called it names for moving with such lethargy.

“Here is the coffee at last,” she said.  “I made it fresh.  And I have brought some brioches.  Will you sit up and have the tray on your knees?”

“Thank you,” said Ste. Marie.  “I do not wish anything.”

“You do not—­” she repeated after him.  “But I have made the coffee especially for you,” she protested.  “I thought you wanted it.  I don’t understand.”

With a sudden movement the man turned toward her a white and drawn face.

“Mademoiselle,” he cried, “it would have been more merciful to let your gardener shoot again yesterday.  Much more merciful, Mademoiselle.”

She stared at him under her straight, black brows.

“What do you mean?” she demanded.  “More merciful?  What do you mean by that?”

Ste. Marie stretched out a pointing finger, and the girl followed it.  She gave, after a tense instant, a single, sharp scream.  And upon that: 

“No, no!  It’s not true!  It’s not possible!”

Moving stiffly, she set down the bowl she carried, and the hot liquid splashed up round her wrists.  For a moment she hung there, drooping, holding herself up by the strength of her hands upon the table.  It was as if she had been seized with faintness.  Then she sprang to where the cat crouched beside a chair.  She dropped upon her knees and tried to raise it in her arms, but the beast bit and scratched at her feebly, and crept away to a little distance, where it lay struggling and very unpleasant to see.

“Poison!” she said, in a choked, gasping whisper.  “Poison!” She looked once toward the man upon the bed, and she was white and shivering.  “It’s not true!” she cried again.  “I—­won’t believe it!  It’s because the cat—­was not used to coffee.  Because it was hot.  I won’t believe it!  I won’t believe it!” She began to sob, holding her hands over her white face.

Ste. Marie watched her with puzzled eyes.  If this was acting, it was very good acting.  A little glimmer of hope began to burn in him—­hope that in this last shameful thing, at least, the girl had had no part.

“It’s impossible,” she insisted, piteously.  “I tell you it’s impossible.  I brought the coffee myself from the kitchen.  I took it from the pot there—­the same pot we had all had ours from.  It was never out of my sight—­or, that is—­I mean—­”