"The Huguenots were seemingly in great favor with Catherine de Medicis, who was preparing for her great coup, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The d'Ochtès were not overlooked by the cruel queen, but a guard was sent to Roche Craie headed by a zealous Jesuit. Jean was murdered in his bed but Elizabeth escaped with her little son Henri to the chapel. She shut the great iron door and managed to place the heavy bar so that the soldiers could not open it, but the artful Jesuit came up into this field and made the soldiers tear down the steeple and then he lowered himself into the chapel with a rope. It was raining in torrents and as the steeple was removed the floor was deluged. Elizabeth hid her little son behind the altar and ran to the door hoping, it is supposed, to divert the attention of the furious priest from her son to herself. She shrieked, and the soldiers in the field above heard her agonizing cry, 'God help me, God help me!'
"There was a tremendous clap of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning. The Jesuit lunged forward with his dagger raised, but the lightning struck before he could, and he and the Lady Elizabeth met death at the same moment. Strange to say, the little Henri, hiding behind the altar, was unharmed. The bolt from heaven had come straight through the aperture made by tearing down this steeple, not touching the soldiers in the field above or the frightened child below. It is said that the bodies of the lady and the priest were both entirely consumed. The soldiers, taking it as a sign from heaven, spared the young heir of Roche Craie; otherwise, the race would have been exterminated on that dreadful day.
"And now for the ghost story after my long narrative, which I am afraid must have bored you sadly."
"Oh, don't think it! I have been thrilled by it. Please go on," exclaimed Molly.
"You are very kind to find it interesting. It always excites me, especially when I think how close little Henri was to being killed; and had he not been spared, I myself could never have come into existence."
"That would have been a calamity, indeed," laughed Molly.
"Would it have made any difference to you, Cousin Molly? I should like to think it would have made some difference to you," and Philippe looked rather more ardent than Molly liked to see him.
"Of course it would make loads of difference to all of us, Philippe. But the ghost story, the ghost story! I believe you are afraid to tell it to me."
"Well, the legend runs that on a stormy night if the floor of the chapel, which is paved with soapstone, gets wet, the footprints of the Lady Elizabeth, where she ran across the deluged floor, are plainly visible. She was just out of her bed and her feet were bare. They say it shows she had a very small foot with a high arch, the print of the heel, a space where the instep arches over, and then the ball of the foot and the tiny toes. Peasants passing in the field above have heard (provided the night is stormy enough), the agonizing cry, 'God help me, God help me!' seeming to come from the old steeple."
"How wonderful! But tell me, have you never seen the footprints yourself?"