An
honest peasant-woman would have had a rosary in her basket, but this
was no honest-peasant woman, and she had none.
The forest was very still,--it was steeped in quietness. The
rustling of the dry leaves under the feet of the woman was all she
heard, except when the low sighing of the wind, the sharp bark of a
fox, or the shriek of an owl, broke the silence for a moment, and
all was again still.
The woman looked watchfully around as she glided onwards. The path
was known to her, but not so familiarly as to prevent the necessity
of stopping every few minutes to look about her and make sure she
was right.
It was long since she had travelled that way, and she was looking
for a landmark--a gray stone that stood somewhere not far from where
she was, and near which she knew that there was a footpath that led,
not directly to the Chateau, but to the old deserted watch-tower of
Beaumanoir.
That stone marked a spot not to be forgotten by her, for it was the
memorial of a deed of wickedness now only remembered by herself and
by God.
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