She found the entrance to the stair open; she passed in, closing the door behind her so that the glimmer might not be seen by any chance stroller, and struck a light. The reputation which the tower had of being haunted made the servants very shy of entering it, even in the day-time; and the man was considered bold indeed who came near it after dark.
With her candle in her hand, La Corriveau descended slowly into the gloomy vault. It was a large cavern of stone, a very habitation of darkness, which seemed to swallow up the feeble light she carried.
It was divided into three portions, separated by rough columns.
A spring of water trickled in and trickled out of a great stone trough, ever full and overflowing with a soft, tinkling sound, like a clepsydra measuring the movements of eternity. The cool, fresh, living water diffused throughout the vaults an even, mild temperature the year round. The gardeners of the Chateau took advantage of this, and used the vault as a favorite storeroom for their crops of fruit and vegetables for winter use in the Chateau.
La Corriveau went resolutely forward, as one who knew what she sought and where to find it, and presently stood in front of a recess containing a wooden panel similar to that in the Chateau, and movable in the same manner. She considered it for some moments, muttering to herself as she held aloft the candle to inspect it closely and find the spring by which it was moved.
La Corriveau had been carefully instructed by Mere Malheur in every point regarding the mechanism of this door. She had no difficulty in finding the secret of its working. A slight touch sufficed when the right place was known. She pressed it hard with her hand; the panel swung open, and behind it gaped a dark, narrow passage leading to the secret chamber of Caroline.
She entered without hesitation, knowing whither it led. It was damp and stifling. Her candle burned dimmer and dimmer in the impure air of the long shut-up passage. There were, however, no other obstacles in her way. The passage was unincumbered; but the low arch, scarcely over her own height, seemed to press down upon her as she passed along, as if to prevent her progress. The fearless, wicked heart bore her up,--nothing worse than herself could meet her; and she felt neither fear at what lay before her nor remorse at what was behind.
The distance to be traversed was not far, although it seemed to her impatience to be interminable. Mere Malheur, with her light heels, could once run through it in a minute, to a tryst in the old tower.
La Corriveau was thrice that time in groping her way along it before she came to a heavy, iron-ribbed door set in a deep arch, which marked the end of the passage.
That black, forbidding door was the dividing of light from darkness, of good from evil, of innocence from guilt. On one side of it, in a chamber of light, sat a fair girl, confiding, generous, and deceived only through her excess of every virtue; on the other, wickedness, fell and artful, was approaching with stealthy footsteps through an unseen way, and stood with hand upraised to knock, but incapable of entering in unless that unsuspecting girl removed the bar.
As the hour of midnight approached, one sound after another died away in the Chateau. Caroline, who had sat counting the hours and watching the spectral moon as it flickered among the drifting clouds, withdrew from the window with a trembling step, like one going to her doom.
She descended to the secret chamber, where she had appointed to meet her strange visitor and hear from strange lips the story that would be told her.
She attired herself with care, as a woman will in every extremity of life. Her dark raven hair was simply arranged, and fell in thick masses over her neck and shoulders. She put on a robe of soft, snow-white texture, and by an impulse she yielded to, but could not explain, bound her waist with a black sash, like a strain of mourning in a song of innocence. She wore no ornaments save a ring, the love-gift of Bigot, which she never parted with, but wore with a morbid anticipation that its promises would one day be fulfilled.
She clung to it as a talisman that would yet conjure away her sorrows; and it did! but alas! in a way little anticipated by the constant girl! A blast from hell was at hand to sweep away her young life, and with it all her earthly troubles.
She took up a guitar mechanically, as it were, and as her fingers wandered over the strings, a bar or two of the strain, sad as the sigh of a broken heart, suggested an old ditty she had loved formerly, when her heart was full of sunshine and happiness, when her fancy used to indulge in the luxury of melancholic musings, as every happy, sensitive, and imaginative girl will do as a counterpoise to her high-wrought feelings.
In a low voice, sweet and plaintive as the breathings of an Aeolian harp, Caroline sang her Minne-song:--"'A linnet sat upon a thorn At evening chime.
Its sweet refrain fell like the rain Of summer-time.
Of summer-time when roses bloomed, And bright above A rainbow spanned my fairy-land Of hope and love!
Of hope and love! O linnet, cease Thy mocking theme!
I ne'er picked up the golden cup In all my dream!
In all my dream I missed the prize Should have been mine;