, and to Beauvouloir's great satisfaction, the count replaced
the dagger in its sheath.

"Could you not," continued the count, "find yourself for once in
your life in the honorable company of a noble and his wife, without
suspecting them of the base crimes and trickery of your own kind? Kill
my son! take him from his mother! Where did you get such crazy ideas?
Am I a madman? Why do you attempt to frighten me about the life of that
vigorous child? Fool! I defy your silly talk--but remember this, since
you are here, your miserable life shall answer for that of the mother
and the child."

The bonesetter was puzzled by this sudden change in the count's
intentions. This show of tenderness for the infant alarmed him far more
than the impatient cruelty and savage indifference hitherto manifested
by the count, whose tone in pronouncing the last words seemed to
Beauvouloir to point to some better scheme for reaching his infernal
ends. The shrewd practitioner turned this idea over in his mind until a
light struck him.

"I have it!" he said to himself. "This great and good noble does not
want to make himself odious to his wife; he'll trust to the vials of the
apothecary. I must warn the lady to see to the food and medicine of her
babe."

As he turned toward the bed, the count who had opened a closet, stopped
him with an imperious gesture, holding out a purse. Beauvouloir saw
within its red silk meshes a quantity of gold, which the count now flung
to him contemptuously.

"Though you make me out a villain I am not released from the obligation
of paying you like a lord. I shall not ask you to be discreet. This man
here," (pointing to Bertrand) "will explain to you that there are rivers
and trees everywhere for miserable wretches who chatter of me."

So saying the count advanced slowly to the bonesetter, pushed a chair
noisily toward him, as if to invite him to sit down, as he did himself
by the bedside; then he said to his wife in a specious voice:--

"Well, my pretty one, so we have a son; this is a joyful thing for us.
Do you suffer much?"

"No," murmured the countess.

The evident surprise of the mother, and the tardy demonstrations of
pleasure on the part of the father, convinced Beauvouloir that there
was some incident behind all this which escaped his penetration. He
persisted in his suspicion, and rested his hand on that of the young
wife, less to watch her condition than to convey to her some advice.

"The skin i