oot. The
countess affected childish happiness; but her sharp and sudden movements
betrayed the storm that was raging in her heart. Daniel noticed that she
incessantly filled the count's glass,--a strong wine it was too,--and
that, in order to make him take more, she drank herself an unusual
quantity.

It struck twelve, and Count Ville-Handry got up.

"Well," he said with the air and the voice of a man who braces himself
to mount the scaffold, "it must be done; they are waiting for me."

And, after having kissed his wife with passionate tenderness, he shook
hands with Daniel, and went out hurriedly.

Crimson and breathless, Sarah also had risen, and was listening
attentively. And, when she was quite sure that the count had gone
downstairs, she said,--

"Now, Daniel, look at me! Need I tell you who the woman is whom I have
chosen for you? It is--the Countess Ville-Handry."

He shook and trembled; but he controlled himself by a supreme effort,
and calmly smiling, in a half tender, half ironical tone, he replied,--

"Why, oh, why! do you speak to me of unattainable happiness? Are you not
married?"

"I may be a widow."

These words from her lips had a fearful meaning. But Daniel was prepared
for them, and said,--

"To be sure you may. But, unfortunately, you, also, are ruined. You are
as poor as I am; and we are too clever to think of joining poverty to
poverty."

She looked at him with a strange, sinister smile. She was evidently
hesitating. A last ray of reason lighted up the abyss at her feet. But
she was drunk with pride and passion; she had taken a good deal of wine;
and her usually cool head was in a state of delirium.

"And if I were not ruined?" she said at last in a hoarse voice; "what
would you say then?"

"I should say that you are the very woman of whom an ambitious man of
thirty might dream in his most glorious visions."

She believed him. Yes, she was capable of believing that what he said
was true; and, throwing aside all restraint, she went on,--

"Well, then, I will tell you. I am rich,--immensely rich. That entire
fortune which once belonged to Count Ville-Handry, and which he thinks
has been lost in unlucky speculations,--the whole of it is in my hands.
Ah! I have suffered horribly, to have to play for two long years the
loving wife to this decrepit old man. But I thought of you, my much
beloved, my Daniel; and that thought sustained me. I knew you would come
back; and I wanted to have