Lydia exclaimed, angrily:

"Miserable girl, you did that purposely!"

The fierce creature as she uttered these words, rushed toward the large
hole now made in the panel--too late!

She only saw Lincoln erect in the centre of the studio, looking toward
the broken window, while the Countess, standing a few paces from him,
exclaimed:

"My daughter! What has happened to my daughter? I recognized her
voice."

"Do not alarm yourself," replied Lydia, with atrocious sarcasm. "Alba
broke the pane to give you a warning."

"But, is she hurt?" asked the mother.

"Very slightly," replied the implacable woman with the same accent of
irony, and she turned again toward the Contessina with a glance of such
rancor that, even in the state of confusion in which the latter was
plunged by that which she had surprised, that glance paralyzed her with
fear. She felt the same shudder which had possessed her dear friend
Maud, in that same studio, in the face of the sinister depths of that
dark soul, suddenly exposed. She had not time to precisely define her
feelings, for already her mother was beside her, pressing her in her
arms--in those very arms which Alba had just seen twined around the neck
of a lover--while that same mouth showered kisses upon him. The moral