s
as she lay, and, at his repeated request, she did again look out from the
coverlet, shuddered, hid her eyes, and looked again, all the while
begging him to take it away, or it would drive her out of her senses. But
he would not do so as yet, and the wardrobe was not locked till dawn.

The scene was repeated the next night. Firm in enforcing his ferocious
correctives, he continued the treatment till the nerves of the poor lady
were quivering in agony under the virtuous tortures inflicted by her
lord, to bring her truant heart back to faithfulness.

The third night, when the scene had opened as usual, and she lay staring
with immense wild eyes at the horrid fascination, on a sudden she gave an
unnatural laugh; she laughed more and more, staring at the image, till
she literally shrieked with laughter: then there was silence, and he
found her to have become insensible. He thought she had fainted, but
soon saw that the event was worse: she was in an epileptic fit. He
started up, dismayed by the sense that, like many other subtle
personages, he had been too exacting for his own interests. Such love as
he was capable of, though rather a selfish gloating than a cherishing
solicitude, was fanned into life on the instant. He closed the wardrobe
with the pulley, clasped her in his arms, took her gently to the window,
and did all he could to restore her.

It was a long time before the Countess came to herself, and when she did
so, a considerable change seemed to have taken place in her emotions. She
flung her arms around him, and with gasps of fear abjectly kissed him
many times, at last bursting into tears. She had never wept in this
scene before.

'You'll take it away, dearest--you will!' she begged plaintively.

'If you love me.'

'I do--oh, I do!'

'And hate him, and his memory?'

'Yes--yes!'

'Thoroughly?'

'I cannot endure recollection of him!' cried the poor Countess slavishly.
'It fills me with shame--how could I ever be so depraved! I'll never
behave badly again, Uplandtowers; and you will never put the hated statue
again before my eyes?'

He felt that he could promise with perfect safety. 'Never,' said he.

'And then I'll love you,' she returned eagerly, as if dreading lest the
scourge should be applied anew. 'And I'll never, never dream of thinking
a single thought that seems like faithlessness to my marriage vow.'

The strange thing now was that this fictitious love wrung from her by
terror