y
cramped and stiffened joints that crippled me, it was the sensation of
that dead man's close presence. I almost fancied--I almost fancy
still--I heard the arm nearest to me move; lift itself up, as if once
more imploring, and fall in dead despair. At that fancy--if fancy it
were--I screamed aloud in mad terror, and the sound of my own strange
voice broke the spell. I drew myself to the side of the table farthest
from the corpse, with as much slow caution as if I really could have
feared the clutch of that poor dead arm, powerless for evermore. I
softly raised myself up, and stood sick and trembling, holding by the
table, too dizzy to know what to do next. I nearly fainted, when a low
voice spoke--when Amante, from the outside of the door, whispered,
'Madame!' The faithful creature had been on the watch, had heard my
scream, and having seen the three ruffians troop along the gallery down
the stairs, and across the court to the offices in the other wing of
the castle, she had stolen to the door of the room in which I was. The
sound of her voice gave me strength; I walked straight towards it, as
one benighted on a dreary moor, suddenly perceiving the small steady
light which tells of human dwellings, takes heart, and steers straight
onward. Where I was, where that voice was, I knew not; but go to it I
must, or die. The door once opened--I know not by which of us--I fell
upon her neck, grasping her tight, till my hands ached with the tension
of their hold. Yet she never uttered a word. Only she took me up in her
vigorous arms, and bore me to my room, and laid me on my bed. I do not
know more; as soon as I was placed there I lost sense; I came to myself
with a horrible dread lest my husband was by me, with a belief that he
was in the room, in hiding, waiting to hear my first words, watching
for the least sign of the terrible knowledge I possessed to murder me.
I dared not breathe quicker, I measured and timed each heavy
inspiration; I did not speak, nor move, nor even open my eyes, for long
after I was in my full, my miserable senses. I heard some one treading
softly about the room, as if with a purpose, not as if for curiosity,
or merely to beguile the time; some one passed in and out of the salon;
and I still lay quiet, feeling as if death were inevitable, but wishing
that the agony of death were past. Again faintness stole over me; but
just as I was sinking into the horrible feeling of nothingness, I heard
Amante's voice