marvelled at her beauty, which was enhanced by the simple richness of
her dress. The Count had not arrived. One quarter of an hour succeeded
another, and still he did not make his appearance. The Colonel went to
the Count's rooms. There he found his valet, who said his master, just
when he was fully dressed for the ceremony, had suddenly felt unwell,
and had gone out for a turn in the park, hoping the fresh air would
revive him, and forbidding him, the valet, to follow him.

The Colonel could not explain to himself why it was that this
proceeding of the Count's fell on him with such a weight--why it was
that an idea immediately came to him that something terrible had
happened. He sent back to the house to say that the Count would come
very shortly, and that a celebrated doctor, who was one of the guests,
was to be privately told to come out to him as quickly as possible. As
soon as he came, he, the Colonel and the valet, went to search for the
Count in the park. Striking out of the main alley, they went to an open
space surrounded by thick shrubberies, which the Colonel remembered to
have been a favourite resort of the Count's; and there they saw him
sitting on a mossy bank, dressed all in black, with his star sparkling
on his breast, and his hands folded, leaning his back against an
elder-tree in full blossom, staring, motionless, before him. They
shuddered at the sight, for his hollow, darkly-gleaming eyes were
evidently devoid of the faculty of vision.

"Count S----! what has happened?" the Colonel cried; but there was no
answer, no movement, not the slightest appearance of respiration. The
doctor hurried forward; tore off the Count's coat, waistcoat, and
neckcloth, and rubbed his brow: turning then to the Colonel, he said in
hollow tones, "Human help is useless here. He is dead!--there has been
an attack of apoplexy!"

The valet broke out into loud lamentations. The Colonel, mastering his
inward horror with all his soldierly self-control, ordered him to hold
his peace, saying, "If we are not careful what we are about, we shall
kill Angelica on the spot." He caused the body to be taken up and
carried by unfrequented paths to a pavilion at some distance, of which
he happened to have the key in his pocket. There he left it under the
valet's charge, and, with the doctor, went back to the chateau again.
Hovering between one resolve and another, he could not make up his mind
whether to conceal the whole matter from Ang