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 close to m