who has wished to eavesdrop.--But what for? You, who are tall, look and
see how it has been done and what it looks on. If it is a hole cut
purposely, I shall discover the culprit and he shall go."

Alba obeyed the perfidious request absently, and applied her eye to the
aperture. The author of the anonymous letters had chosen her moment only
too well. As soon as the door of the studio was closed, the Countess
rose to approach Lincoln. She entwined around the young man's neck her
arms, which gleamed through the transparent sleeves of her summer gown,
and she kissed with greedy lips his eyes and mouth. Lydia, who had
retained one of the girl's hands in hers, felt that hand tremble
convulsively. A hunter who hears rustle the foliage of the thicket
through which should pass the game he is awaiting, does not experience a
joy more complete. Her snare was successful. She said to her unhappy
victim:

"What ails you? How you tremble!"

And she essayed to push her away in order to put herself in her place.
Alba, whom the sight of her mother embracing Lincoln with those
passionate kisses inspired at that moment with an inexplicable horror,
had, however, enough presence of mind in the midst of her suffering to
understand the danger of that mother whom she had surprised thus,
clasping in the arms of a guilty mistress--whom?--the husband of the very
woman speaking to her, who asked her why she trembled with fear, who
would look through that same hole to see that same tableau!.... In order
to prevent what she believed would be to Lydia a terrible revelation, the
courageous child had one of those desperate thoughts such as immediate
peril inspires. With her free hand she struck the glass so violently
that it was shivered into atoms, cutting her fingers and her wrist.