"A man!--why choose a man for the purpose?" she said in a feeble
voice.

"Ho! ho! my lady, am I not master here?" replied the count.

"What matters one horror the more!" murmured the countess; but her
master had disappeared, and the exclamation did her no injury.

Presently, in a brief lull of the storm, the countess heard the gallop
of two horses which seemed to fly across the sandy dunes by which the
castle was surrounded. The sound was quickly lost in that of the
waves. Soon she felt herself a prisoner in the vast apartment, alone
in the midst of a night both silent and threatening, and without
succor against an evil she saw approaching her with rapid strides. In
vain she sought for some stratagem by which to save that child
conceived in tears, already her consolation, the spring of all her
thoughts, the future of her affections, her one frail hope.

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