“Will Madame not take anything,” asked the maid.
The Countess opened her left hand, and showed her a little bottle she was holding inside it.
“Yes, Lisette,” she said, “I am going to take what is in this bottle.”
“What, nothing but that!” said Lisette.
“It will be enough, Lisette; for after I have taken it, I shall have need of nothing more.”
And as she spoke, she put the bottle to her mouth and drank the contents at a draught. Then she said:
“You saw that man, Lisette, who waited for us in the road; I have a meeting with him this evening, here in my room, at half past nine. You know where to go and wait for him, and you will bring him here. I do not wish that anyone should be able to say that I was not true to my word, ever after I am dead.”
Thibault had nothing to say; the agreement made between them had been kept. Only the Countess had accomplished her revenge herself, single-handed, as everyone understood, when the valet feeling uneasy about his master, and going softly into his room to look at him, found him lying on his back with a dagger in his heart; and then hurrying to tell Madame what had happened, found the Countess dead also.
The news of this double death soon spread through the Castle, and all the servants had fled, saying that the exterminating Angel was in the Castle; the waiting-maid alone remained to carry out her dead mistress’s wishes.
Thibault had nothing more to do at the castle, so he left the Countess on her bed, with Lisette near her, and went down stairs. As Lisette had said, there was no fear now of meeting either master or servants; the servants had run away, the master and mistress were dead. Thibault once more made for the breach in the wall. The sky was dark, and if it had not been January, you might have imagined a thunder storm was brewing; there was barely light enough to see the footpath, as he went along. Once or twice Thibault paused; he fancied he had detected the sound of the dry branches cracking under someone’s footsteps keeping pace with his, both to right and left.