And her lips grew quite white.  Her agony was manifest in every gesture.  From an involuntary feeling of sympathy I shuddered myself, and I was on the point of changing my manner and language forthwith.

“What can there be in this to astound her so?” I asked myself.  “Is she not merely acting a part?  And even if the Mauprats are not hidden behind some wainscot listening to us, is she not sure to give them an account of everything that takes place?  And yet she is trembling like an aspen leaf.  But what if she is acting?  I once saw an actress play Genevieve de Brabant, and she wept so that one might have been deceived.”

I was in a state of great perplexity, and I cast harassed glances now at her, now at the doors, which I fancied every moment would be thrown wide open amid roars of laughter from my uncles.

This woman was beautiful as the day.  I do not believe there has ever lived a woman as lovely as she.  It is not I alone who say so; she has left a reputation for beauty which has not yet died out in her province.  She was rather tall, slender, and remarkable for the easy grace of her movements.  Her complexion was very fair, while her eyes were dark and her hair like ebony.  Her glance and her smile showed a union of goodness and acuteness which it was almost impossible to conceive; it was as if Heaven had given her two souls, one wholly of intellect, the other wholly of feeling.  She was naturally cheerful and brave—­an angel, indeed, whom the sorrows of humanity had not yet dared to touch.  She knew not what it was to suffer; she knew not what it was to distrust and dread.  This, indeed, was the first trial of her life, and it was I, brute that I was, who made her undergo it.  I took her for a gipsy, and she was an angel of purity.

She was my young cousin (or aunt, after the Breton fashion), Edmee de Mauprat, the daughter of M. Hubert, my great-uncle (again in the Breton fashion), known as the Chevalier—­he who had sought release from the Order of Malta that he might marry, though already somewhat advanced in years.  My cousin was the same age as myself; at least, there was a difference of only a few months between us.  Both of us were now seventeen, and this was our first interview.  She whom I ought to have protected at the peril of my life against the world was now standing before me trembling and terror-stricken, like a victim before the executioner.

She made a great effort, and approaching me as I walked about the hall deep in thought, she explained who she was, adding: 

“It is impossible that you can be an infamous creature like all these brigands whom I have just seen, and of whose hideous life I have often heard.  You are young; your mother was good and wise.  My father wanted to adopt you and bring you up as his son.  Even to-day he is still full of grief at not being able to draw you out of the abyss in which you lie.  Have you not often received messages from him?  Bernard, you and I are of the same family; think of the ties of blood; why would you insult me?  Do they intend to assassinate me here or torture me?  Why did they deceive me by saying that I was at Rochemaure?  Why did they withdraw in this mysterious way?  What are they preparing?  What is going to happen?”