s impossible; and,
when she attempted to speak, she could only flutter her lips and emit
incoherent sounds. She felt herself lost. The thought of death unhinged
her. Her knees gave way beneath her and she sank into a huddled heap,
with a moan.

The count rushed at her and seized her by the throat:

"Hold your tongue ... don't call out!" he said, in a low voice. "That
will be best for you!..."

Seeing that she was not attempting to defend herself, he loosened his
hold of her and took from his pocket some strips of canvas ready rolled
and of different lengths. In a few minutes, Yvonne was lying on a sofa,
with her wrists and ankles bound and her arms fastened close to her
body.

It was now dark in the boudoir. The count switched on the electric light
and went to a little writing-desk where Yvonne was accustomed to keep
her letters. Not succeeding in opening it, he picked the lock with a
bent wire, emptied the drawers and collected all the contents into a
bundle, which he carried off in a cardboard file:

"Waste of time, eh?" he grinned. "Nothing but bills and letters of no
importance.... No proof against you.... Tah! I'll keep my son for all
that; and I swear before Heaven that I will not let him go!"

As he was leaving the room, he was joined, near the door, by his man
Bernard. The two stopped and talked, in a low voice; but Yvonne heard
these words spoken by the servant:

"I have had an answer from the working jeweller. He says he holds
himself at my disposal."

And the count replied:

"The thing is put off until twelve o'clock midday, to-morrow. My mother
has just telephoned to say that she could not come before."

Then Yvonne heard the key turn in the lock and the sound of steps going
down to the ground-floor, where her husband's study was.

She long lay inert, her brain reeling with vague, swift ideas that burnt
her in passing, like flames. She remembered her husband's infamous
behaviour, his humiliating conduct to her, his threats, his plans for a
divorce; and she gradually came to understand that she was the victim of
a regular conspiracy, that the servants had been sent away until the
following evening by their master's orders, that the governess had
carried off her son by the count's instructions and with Bernard's
assistance, that her son would not come back and that she would never
see him again.

"My son!" she cried. "My son!..."

Exasperated by her grief, she stiffened herself, with every ner