"'Has it any secret spring or clasp?' she asked.
"'No—none, I am assured,' he answered, boldly.
"'You are sure of this, Jules?'
"'I swear to you Annette,' he urged, becoming frightfully agitated, while the perspiration rolled like beads down his brow.
"'Swear not—you have lied enough already,' she exclaimed wildly. 'See, monsieur,' she added, pressing a spring and opening the locket by a secret hitherto unknown to Coeurdefer, 'it contains my miniature and a braid of my hair—mine, given in a happy, happy hour to Louis d'Herblay! O, Louis! look down on me from heaven, and see how fate has avenged thee! Away, chevalier—away; come not near me, and touch me not! If other proof were wanting that you were his murderer, it is here.'
"These words were rashly spoken, yet they stung Jules to the soul. She tore her bridal chaplet and veil from her brow, trampled on them with gestures of frenzy, and was borne away insensible in the arms of the canonesses.
"In one hour after that dénouement the exasperated chevalier had left Remiremont for the French camp—left it to return no more."
"And what of Annette?" asked some one.
"She took the black veil, and is now nun of the convent of St. Nicole, seven miles from Nancy. With that day's discovery began and ended the wedded life of Coeurdefer; and since then he has led a wild and reckless career, committing innumerable acts of daring, which by some strange fatality have passed as yet unpunished; but the assassination of D'Herblay—for that he did assassinate him, I have not the slightest doubt—is the blackest of his acts; unless, indeed, that other episode at Minden be a deeper and a darker one.
"The marriage prevented the Vicomte Henri alike from prosecuting him at common law as a felon, and from challenging him to a solemn duel, and so time passed on; but he hated my colonel—the handsome young Mousquetaire—with the hate of a tiger; hence I doubt not that by his hand, or the hands of some of his lawless troop at his behest, my leader perished on the field of Minden!