Bigot was overpowered with his feelings, yet
strove to master them, as he gulped down the rising in his throat
which at times almost strangled him.
Cadet, eager to get his painful task over, took from the slender
finger of Caroline a ring, a love-gift of Bigot, and from her neck a
golden locket containing his portrait and a lock of his hair. A
rosary hung at her waist; this Cadet also detached, as a precious
relic to be given to the Intendant by and by. There was one thread
of silk woven into the coarse hempen nature of Cadet.
Bigot stooped down and gave her pale lips and eyes, which he had
tenderly closed, a last despairing kiss, before veiling her face
with the winding-sheet as she lay, white as a snow-drift, and as
cold. They wrapped her softly in the blankets, and without a word
spoken, lowered the still, lissom body into its rude grave.
The awful silence was only broken by the spasmodic sobs of Bigot as
he leaned over the grave to look his last upon the form of the fair
girl whom he had betrayed and brought to this untimely end.
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