“I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the community. These are my orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At eleven o’clock exactly, I am to be in the chapel. The Mother Precentors will be there. Mother Ascension will be there. Two men would be better. However, never mind! I shall have my lever. We will open the vault, we will lower the coffin, and we will close the vault again. After which, there will be no trace of anything. The government will have no suspicion. Thus all has been arranged, reverend Mother?”

“No!”

“What else remains?”

“The empty coffin remains.”

This produced a pause. Fauchelevent meditated. The prioress meditated.

“What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fauvent?”

“It will be given to the earth.”