place that
might have been a granary. I went in at all risks, and there we found
Juliette. With the instinct of despair, she had buried herself deep in
the hay, hiding her face in it to deaden those dreadful cries--pudency
even stronger than grief. She was sobbing and crying like a child, but
there was a more poignant, more piteous sound in the sobs. There was
nothing left in the world for her. The maid pulled the hay from her, her
mistress submitting with the supine listlessness of a dying animal. The
maid could find nothing to say but "There! madame; there, there----"

"What is the matter with her? What is it, niece?" the old canon kept on
exclaiming.

At last, with the girl's help, I carried Juliette to her room, gave
orders that she was not to be disturbed, and that every one must be told
that the Countess was suffering from a sick headache. Then we came down
to the dining-room, the canon and I.

Some little time had passed since we left the dinner-table; I had
scarcely given a thought to the Count since we left him under the
peristyle; his indifference had surprised me, but my amazement increased
when we came back and found him seated philosophically at table. He had
eaten pretty nearly all the dinner, to the huge delight of his little
daughter; the child was smiling at her father's flagrant infraction of
the Countess' rules. The man's odd indifference was explained to me by
a mild altercation which at once arose with the canon. The Count was
suffering from some serious complaint. I cannot remember now what it
was, but his medical advisers had put him on a very severe regimen, and
the ferocious hunger familiar to convalescents, sheer animal appetite,
had overpowered all human sensibilities. In that little space I had seen
frank and undisguised human nature under two very different aspects, in
such a sort that there was a certain grotesque element in the very midst
of a most terrible tragedy.

The evening that followed was dreary. I was tired. The canon racked his
brains to discover a reason for his niece's tears. The lady's husband
silently digested his dinner; content, apparently, with the Countess'
rather vague explanation, sent through the maid, putting forward some
feminine ailment as her excuse. We all went early to bed.

As I passed the door of the Countess' room on the way to my night's
lodging, I asked the servant timidly for news of her. She heard my
voice, and would have me come in, and tried to tal