to
be employed. At last, toward midnight, Sir Thorn saw the young countess
come out of Henrietta's room.

"How is she?" he cried out.

Then the countess said, speaking very loud, so as to be heard by the
servants,--

"She is coming to; and that is why I am leaving her. She dislikes me so
terribly, that poor unhappy child, that I fear my presence might do her
harm."

Henrietta had indeed recovered her consciousness. First had come a
shiver running over her whole body; then she had tried painfully and
repeatedly to raise herself on her pillows, looking around,--

Evidently she did not remember what had happened, and mechanically
passed her hand to and fro over her brow, as if to brush away the dark
veil that was hanging over her mind, looking with haggard eyes at the
doctors, at her father, and at her confidante, Clarissa, who knelt by
her bedside, weeping.

At last, when, all of a sudden, the horrid reality broke upon her mind,
she threw herself back, and cried out,--

"O God!"

But she was saved; and the doctors soon withdrew, declaring that
there was nothing to apprehend now, provided their prescriptions were
carefully observed. The count then came up to his daughter, and, taking
her hands, asked her,--

"Come, child. What has happened? What was the matter?"

She looked upon him in utter despair, and then said in a low voice,--

"Nothing! only you have ruined me, father."

"How, how?" said the count. "What do you mean?"

And very much embarrassed, perhaps angry against himself, and trying to
find an excuse for what he had done, he added, simpering,--

"Is it not your own fault? Why do you treat Sarah so badly, and do all
you can to exasperate me?"

"Yes, you are right. It is my fault," murmured Henrietta.

She said it in a tone of bitter irony now; but afterwards, when she was
alone, and more quiet, reflecting in the silence of the night, she had
to acknowledge, and confess to herself, that it was so. The scandal by
which she had intended to crush her step-mother had fallen back upon
herself, and crushed her.

Still, the next morning she was a little better; and, in spite of all
that Clarissa could say, she would get up, and go down stairs, for all
her hopes henceforth depended on that letter written by Daniel. She had
been waiting day after day for M. de Brevan, who was to bring it to her;
and for nothing in the world would she have been absent when he came at
last.

But she waited for him in