The station at Reuilly was several miles distant from the house.  In the confusion no arrangement had been made to receive him on his arrival, and he was obliged to content himself with making the intermediate journey in a heavy country-wagon.  The bad condition of the roads was a new obstacle, and it was three o’clock in the morning when the Count, impatient and travel-worn, jumped out of the little cart before the railings of his avenue.  He strode toward the house under the dark and silent dome of the tufted elms.  He was in the middle of the avenue when a sharp cry rent the air.  His heart bounded in his breast:  he suddenly stopped and listened attentively.  The cry echoed through the stillness of the night.  One would have deemed it the despairing shriek of a human being under the knife of a murderer.

These dolorous sounds gradually ceasing, he continued his walk with greater haste, and only heard the hollow and muffled sound of his own beating heart.  At the moment he saw the lights of the chateau, another agonized cry, more shrill and alarming than the first, arose.

This time Camors stopped.  Notwithstanding that the natural explanation of these agonized cries presented itself to his mind, he was troubled.

It is not unusual that men like him, accustomed to a purely artificial life, feel a strange surprise when one of the simplest laws of nature presents itself all at once before them with a violence as imperious and irresistible as a divine law.  Camors soon reached the house, and receiving some information from the servants, notified Madame de Tecle of his arrival.  Madame de Tecle immediately descended from her daughter’s room.  On seeing her convulsed features and streaming eyes, “Are you alarmed?” Camors asked, quickly.

“Alarmed?  No,” she replied; “but she suffers much, and it is very long.”

“Can I see her?”

There was a moment’s silence.

Madame de Tecle, whose forehead was contracted, lowered her eyes, then raised them.  “If you insist on it,” she said.

“I insist on nothing!  If you believe my presence would do her harm—­” The voice of Camors was not as steady as usual.

“I am afraid,” replied Madame de Tecle, “that it would agitate her greatly; and if you will have confidence in me, I shall be much obliged to you.”

“But at least,” said Camors, “she might probably be glad to know that I have come, and that I am here—­that I have not abandoned her.”

“I shall tell her.”

“It is well.”  He saluted Madame de Tecle with a slight movement of his head, and turned away immediately.