her mother learning that her daughter had seen all. She had loved her so
much, that mother, she loved her so dearly still!

Then, as a third violent chill shook her from head to foot, Alba began to
think of another mode, and one as sure, of death without any one in the
world being able to suspect that it was voluntary. She recalled the fact
that she was in one of the most dreaded corners of the Roman Campagna;
that she had known persons carried off in a few days by the pernicious
fevers contracted in similar places, at that hour and in that season,
notably one of her friends, one of the Bonapartes living in Rome, who
came thither to hunt when overheated. If she were to try to catch that
same disease?.... And she took up the oars. When she felt her brow
moist with the second effort, she opened her bodice and her chemise, she
exposed her neck, her breast, her throat, and she lay down in the boat,
allowing the damp air to envelop, to caress, to chill her, inviting the
entrance into her blood of the fatal germs. How long did she remain
thus, half-unconscious, in the atmosphere more and more laden with miasma
in proportion as the sun sank? A cry made her rise and again take up the
oars. It was the coachman, who, not seeing her return, had descended
from the box and was hailing the boat at all hazards. When she stepped
upon the bank and when he saw her so pale, the man, who had been in the
Countess's service for years, could not help saying to her, with the
familiarity of an Italian servant:

"You have taken cold, Mademoiselle, and this place is so dangerous."

"Indeed," she replied, "I have had a chill. It will be nothing. Let us
return quickly. Above all, do not say that I was in the boat. You will
cause me to be scolded."