“Oh my God!” she had thought, “he will open the dungeon door and kill him!”
With a wild, despairing cry, she threw up her hands, and was falling, senseless, to the stone floor, when the doctor sprang forward and caught her in his arms.
Pascal signed to one of the men to assist the doctor. “Order the carriage,” he said to another; then he added: “Go, all of you! I will meet you soon in the reception room. I have something for you to do to-morrow. Manassa, put out the lights.”
As he descended the long, steep stairway, he soliloquised:
“It is just as well; it will be a slow and lingering death, while my sword or stiletto would have ended his pain at once. ’Tis better thus, for we shall not have to bury him.”
Manassa had heard the last words uttered by Vivienne. Before snuffing the candles, he picked up the pieces of paper and put them in his pocket. When he reached his room, he locked the door.
An hour later, he looked up with a satisfied smile.
“It is all here!” he exclaimed. “I have the secret of the dungeon door. Vandemar shall die by my hand. I will avenge the wrongs of the Batistellis!”
CHAPTER XXV.
THE DUNGEON CHAMBER.
No sooner did Vandemar hear the door of the dungeon chamber close behind him than there came a revulsion of feeling. The conviction forced itself strongly upon him that he was the victim of a plot which had been successful.