Sustained by maternal courage, she took the horn with which her husband summoned his men, and, opening a window, blew through the brass tube feeble notes that died away upon the vast expanse of water, like a bubble blown into the air by a child.  She felt the uselessness of that moan unheard of men, and turned to hasten through the apartments, hoping that all the issues were not closed upon her.  Reaching the library she sought in vain for some secret passage; then, passing between the long rows of books, she reached a window which looked upon the courtyard.  Again she sounded the horn, but without success against the voice of the hurricane.

In her helplessness she thought of trusting herself to one of the women,—­all creatures of her husband,—­when, passing into her oratory, she found that the count had locked the only door that led to their apartments.  This was a horrible discovery.  Such precautions taken to isolate her showed a desire to proceed without witnesses to some horrible execution.  As moment after moment she lost hope, the pangs of childbirth grew stronger and keener.  A presentiment of murder, joined to the fatigue of her efforts, overcame her last remaining strength.  She was like a shipwrecked man who sinks, borne under by one last wave less furious than others he has vanquished.  The bewildering pangs of her condition kept her from knowing the lapse of time.  At the moment when she felt that, alone, without help, she was about to give birth to her child, and to all her other terrors was added that of the accidents to which her ignorance exposed her, the count appeared, without a sound that let her know of his arrival.  The man was there, like a demon claiming at the close of a compact the soul that was sold to him.  He muttered angrily at finding his wife’s face uncovered; then after masking her carefully, he took her in his arms and laid her on the bed in her chamber.

CHAPTER II

Thebonesetter

The terror of that apparition and hasty removal stopped for a moment the physical sufferings of the countess, and so enabled her to cast a furtive glance at the actors in this mysterious scene.  She did not recognize Bertrand, who was there disguised and masked as carefully as his master.  After lighting in haste some candles, the light of which mingled with the first rays of the sun which were reddening the window panes, the old servitor had gone to the embrasure of a window and stood leaning against a corner of it.  There, with his face towards the wall, he seemed to be estimating its thickness, keeping his body in such absolute immobility that he might have been taken for a statue.  In the middle of the room the countess beheld a short, stout man, apparently out of breath and stupefied, whose eyes were blindfolded and his features so distorted with terror that it was impossible to guess at their natural expression.

“God’s death! you scamp,” said the count, giving him back his eyesight by a rough movement which threw upon the man’s neck the bandage that had been upon his eyes.  “I warn you not to look at anything but the wretched woman on whom you are now to exercise your skill; if you do, I’ll fling you into the river that flows beneath those windows, with a collar round your neck weighing a hundred pounds!”