Then I saw the light shining through a hole in the wall, and that made
me go on again. The mirror had been injured at one place, which looked
like a spot or blemish, and it had often vexed me while I was cleaning
it; and now I saw that it had been done on purpose, to enable one to
look into the room and see that all was safe, before putting the
springs in motion and opening the door.

"I crept close up and peeped in. Count Henry was sitting at the piano,
in his short velvet morning-dress, with his back turned to the mirror,
and all the windows were standing wide open. I was going to steal away
again, but the music bewitched me, as it were; I never could get enough
of it. It was easy enough for it to steal away the heart of a poor
young lonely creature like Gabrielle, when it could so bewilder an old
thing like me! It all came of itself while he was playing, out of his
own head. It was as if he were talking with the spirits within him, and
soothing them when he felt his fits of passion coming on; and at those
times the music sounded like two distinct and separate voices
discoursing--angry first, and quarrelling, and then at peace.

"What storm was raging in him that morning I do not know. He could not
be thinking of Gabrielle's brother,--he was not uneasy about that,--for
he was fully persuaded that she herself would never leave him--neither
of Count Ernest; for what did he know of what he was feeling? But he
must have a kind of presentiment that some great event was impending,
for the music was like the sound of a coming storm, and one could hear
the first roll of the distant thunder. It made me feel so frightened
and uncomfortable--partly because of the confined air in that little
passage--that I stood up, and was just going away, when the door of the
ante-chamber opened, and my dear Count Ernest came in.

"His father looked round, but he made a sign to beg him not to let
himself be disturbed, but to go on playing, and he sat down in an
arm-chair to wait; he sat so that I could see his face straight before
me. There was something so grave and grand about it, and yet so subdued
and peaceful,--he looked handsomer than I ever saw him. He did not
raise his eyes to the secret door; it was pain and grief to him to know
that it was there. He was very pale, and he looked down as if he were
studying the pattern of the inlaid floor, with a look of forced
cheerfulness that made my heart ache. And though he never moved an
eyelid