They entered, and David held his breath.  It was a great room he stood in, thirty feet or more from end to end, and scarcely less in width—­a room brilliant with light, sumptuous in its comfort, sweet with the perfume of wild-flowers, and with a great black fireplace at the end of it, from over which there stared at him the glass eyes of a monster moose.  Then he saw the figure at the piano, and something rose up quickly and choked him when his eyes told him it was not Marie-Anne.  It was a slim, beautiful figure in a soft and shimmering white gown, and its head was glowing gold in the lamplight.

Roger Audemard spoke, “Carmin!”

The woman at the piano turned about, a little startled at the unexpectedness of the voice, and then rose quickly to her feet—­ and David Carrigan found himself looking into the eyes of Carmin Fanchet!

Never had he seen her more beautiful than in this moment, like an angel in her shimmering dress of white, her hair a radiant glory, her eyes wide and glowing—­and, as she looked at him, a smile coming to her red lips.  Yes, she was smiling at him—­this woman whose brother he had brought to the hangman, this woman who had stolen Black Roger from another!  She knew him—­he was sure of that; she knew him as the man who had believed her a criminal along with her brother, and who had fought to the last against her freedom.  Yet from her lips and her eyes and her face the old hatred was gone.  She was coming toward him slowly; she was reaching out her hand, and half blindly his own went out, and he felt the warmth of her fingers for a moment, and he heard her voice saying softly,

“Welcome to Chateau Boulain, M’sieu Carrigan.”

He bowed and mumbled something, and Black Roger gently pressed his arm, drawing him back to the door.  As he went he saw again that Carmin Fanchet was very beautiful as she stood there, and that her lips were very red—­but her face was white, whiter than he had ever seen the face of a woman before.

As they went up a winding stair to the second floor, Roger Audemard said, “I am proud of my Carmin, M’sieu David.  Would any other woman in the world have given her hand like that to the man who had helped to kill her brother?”

They stopped at another door.  Black Roger opened it.  There were lights within, and David knew it was to be his room.  Audemard did not follow him inside, but there was a flashing humor in his eyes.

“I say, is there another woman like her in the world, m’sieu?”

“What have you done to Marie-Anne—­your wife?” asked David.

It was hard for him to get the words out.  A terrible thing was gripping at his throat, and the clutch of it grew tighter as he saw the wild light in Black Roger’s eyes.

“Tomorrow you will know, m’sieu.  But not to-night.  You must wait until tomorrow,”

He nodded and stepped back, and the door closed—­and in the same instant came the harsh grating of a key in the lock.