‘Do not notice me in the hospital, or suspicion will be aroused, and I shall not come again. In the Morgue we shall be free from interruption, and only there. Glazer will conduct you.
‘Marie.’
‘Mass!’ exclaimed Philippe, as Sainte-Croix mentioned the appointment—‘a strange rendezvous! The lady has a bold mind within that delicate frame.’
‘Hush!’ said Gaudin, pressing his arm; ‘do not speak so loud. Show me where the place is and leave me.’
‘Most willingly, if you have courage. One might select a livelier place, however, than the dead-house of an hospital for a trysting-place.’
He took his companion by the hand, and they advanced along one of the arched passages, which the dim lamps barely illuminated, to the top of a flight of stairs. These they descended, and, passing along another vaulted way, paused at a door at the extreme end. It was not fastened. Philippe threw it open, and they entered the Morgue of the hospital—the receptacle for such as died within the precincts of the Hôtel Dieu.
It was a dreary room, with bare white walls and a cold stone floor, lighted by one ghastly lamp that hung against the wall. The frightful mortality for which the hospital was then remarkable kept it well filled with its silent inmates. Some of these were placed upon the ground, enveloped in rough canvas wrappers—the only coffins allowed them—in the same state as they may now be seen brought to the Clamart and other dissecting-schools of Paris; others lay ranged side by side upon large oval marble slabs, capable of accommodating from eight to ten bodies each, and these had merely coarse sheets, or palls, thrown over them. Over the stone floor a wooden trellis was placed, an inch or two in thickness; for the floor was below the level of the turgid Seine, which flowed immediately on the other side of the wall, and the reflection of the lamp glimmering through the interstices showed the water already in the Salle des Cadavres.
As soon as Philippe Glazer had introduced Sainte-Croix to this dreary place he took his departure, and Gaudin was left alone. The light waved in the draught of air caused by opening and closing the door; and as it played over the features of some of the corpses they appeared to move, from the different shadows, and then to resume their wonted calm. In the fever of his mind Gaudin would almost have changed places with them. He had no nervous terror at being alone in such a dismal locality; his only feeling was one that approached to envy of their repose. A minute, however, had scarcely elapsed before the door again opened, and a female, enveloped in a mantle similar to those worn by the sisters of charity, entered. It was the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, who now came to commune with her guilty ally.
They met with perhaps less eagerness than heretofore, albeit they had not seen each other for several days; but although their passion had apparently decreased, yet ties more fearful and more enduring now bound their souls together in the common interest of mutual guilt. The whole world was contracted to the sphere in which they both moved; they knew of, cared for nothing beyond it, except those objects coming within the circle of their dark intent.
After the first greetings had passed, Marie looked cautiously from the door along the vaulted passage. Satisfied that no one was within hearing, she closed it, and going to the marble table, partially threw back the covering from one of the bodies; then grasping Sainte-Croix’s arm, she drew him towards her, saying in a low voice, but clear, and to him distinctly audible—
‘It has done its work nobly, and baffled every physician of the Hôtel Dieu. This one swallowed it in wine, which my own maid, Françoise Roussel, brought to the hospital. The girl would taste it as she went, upon the sly, and it well-nigh cost the fool her life. This one shows what the confiture could do. He lingered long though, and became a skeleton, as you perceive, before his death.’