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

THE BONESETTER

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