CHAPTER LXXIV.

Upstairs, as Finette hurriedly flung the rich robes of her mistress into the trunks, bitter recriminations passed between mistress and servant.

“Do you think I’m going to follow the likes of you, bad as I am?” snarled the maid.

“You are no better than I am. Remember that you ran away from Paris because you poisoned your husband!” Camille sneered, and the woman grew livid.

“How do you know?” she questioned, with a start of fear.

“I know many things more with which to refresh your memory, if you persist in your insolence,” Camille retorted, angrily; and a sullen silence ensued, at which the proud mistress began to be frightened.

What if Finette were to desert her now, when, by her wicked madness, she had alienated every living soul from her? when she was alone in the world but for this creature who had aided and abetted her in all of her wicked schemes, helping her to make shipwreck of her soul for the sake of the gold with which she could reward her confederate?

In abject terms she begged her servant not to forsake her, promising that they should sail at once for France, or anywhere that the woman wished, living together on equal terms, sharing alike in her wealth.

“No longer my servant, but my companion, my only friend!” she wailed, abjectly, and Finette sullenly assented to her proposal.

Presently the trunks of finery were all packed and corded, ready to be sent for, and the two women in their traveling-dresses moved cringingly down the stairway, Camille carrying on her arm the hand-satchel in which were deposited the wealth of splendid unset jewels that now represented her fortune.

At the threshold of the door over which she had passed as a serpent, leaving a trail of venom on all it touched, she paused and looked back with a muttered curse toward the library whence came the murmur of happy voices.

“Curse them! I hope I may find a chance to pay them back yet!” she hissed, malevolently, as she followed Finette down the steps to the broad, white-graveled path between the orange-trees. The rising moon threw a broad white light over everything, and for a minute the maid stopped short.

“How happy they are at getting rid of us!” she ejaculated. “Listen to their happy laughter, miladi. You will never hear it again.”

Camille paused and turned her head toward the sound of the happy voices that floated through the open library window, and then a most horrible thing happened.

Finette Du Val, the treacherous maid, as if moved by some irresistible impulse or meditated villainy, suddenly snatched a shining dagger from her belt and plunged it to the hilt in Camille’s back. As she shrieked and fell, the murderess tore the satchel of jewels from her grasp, and fled wildly from the scene of her hideous crime.

The sound of Camille’s agonized shrieks floated into the window, where they were all talking so happily after their deliverance from danger and sorrow. Dr. Hinton ran out hastily, but the rest waited. They thought Camille was only in hysterics again.

Dr. Hinton bent over her, and saw the great pool of blood on the white gravel.

“My God!” he cried, in horror; and a weak voice moaned:

“Finette Du Val, the evil genius of my life, has robbed and murdered me. She has taken my satchel of unset jewels, my whole fortune, and fled!”

“Horrible!” cried the young man; and his shrill cry brought all the others rushing out.

At his hasty explanation some ran in search of the murderess, some remained to help him carry Camille into the house, but after a brief examination Dr. Hinton decided that it could not be done.

“She has but a few minutes to live,” he said; and Thea, who was gazing, half fainting, on the dreadful sight, suddenly fell down upon her knees. It seemed to her too dreadful for Camille to die thus with her proud head low in the dust which her dainty feet had spurned in happier days. She slipped her fair arm gently under the fallen head, and while she was trying to whisper a prayer for the dying, Camille’s soul went away in one long, sighing groan to its judgment.

Her cruel murderess succeeded in getting away safely with her booty, and for a few years led a life of dissolute splendor in her beloved Paris, but at length she was seen and recognized by one who had known her in former days, and she was immediately arrested for poisoning her husband just before she had entered the service of Camille Acton, or Lacy, as her real name was. The woman’s guilt was so clearly proven that she suffered capital punishment for the murder of her husband, and so Camille’s dreadful death was well avenged.

When Norman de Vere, at Verelands, read the story of her punishment, his feet strayed to a nameless grave in the churchyard which his dear old mother, in the kindness of her heart, often adorned with flowers, and with his eyes on the low, green mound, he whispered:

“Poor Camille! your death is at least avenged. May Heaven rest your soul!”

Verelands was never a very happy place to them after the white gravel before the door had soaked up Camille’s life-blood. Even Norman’s mother was glad to forsake it for some years after Camille was buried, and to go abroad with the rest to Lord Stuart’s beautiful English estate, where it seemed only right and proper that the De Veres should spend half their time at least, since their eldest son, the noble little Alan Arthur, must some day reign there in his uncle’s stead, a noble lord, who inherited a noble soul from his father, as well as beauty and high estate from his sweet mother our Little Sweetheart.

THE END.

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