“What can this mean?” he thought.
There was no light in the lower rooms, and the abbe was obliged to feel for the staircase with his hands. At last he found it and went up. But upon the threshold of the chamber he paused, petrified with horror by the spectacle before him.
Poor Marie-Anne was lying on the floor. Her eyes, which were wide open, were covered with a white film; her black and swollen tongue was hanging from her mouth.
“Dead!” faltered the priest, “dead!”
But this could not be. The abbe conquered his weakness, and approaching the poor girl, he took her hand.
It was icy cold; the arm was rigid as iron.
“Poisoned!” he murmured; “poisoned with arsenic.”
He rose to his feet, and cast a bewildered glance around the room. His eyes fell upon his medicine-chest, open upon the table.
He rushed to it and unhesitatingly took out a vial, uncorked it, and inverted it on the palm of his hand—it was empty.
“I was not mistaken!” he exclaimed.