elt the poverty of
his expression--for he was little used to narrative--but the torturing
thought assailed him that what he said sounded wild and unnatural, real
as it was to him. But he was not prepared for its effect on the bishop.
He was standing in the middle of the room, whose gloom was softened and
gilded by the waxen lights of a huge candelabra; his eyes, which had
wandered unseeingly from one massive piece of carved furniture to
another, suddenly lit on the bed, and he stopped abruptly, his tongue
rolling out. The bishop was sitting up, livid with wrath.

"And this was thy matter of life and death, thou prating madman!" he
thundered. "For this string of foolish lies I am kept from my rest, as
if I were another old lunatic like thyself! Thou art not fit to be a
priest and have the care of souls. To-morrow--"

But the priest had fled, wringing his hands.

As he stumbled down the winding stair he ran straight into the arms of
the count. Monsieur de Croisac had just closed a door behind him. He
opened it, and, leading the priest into the room, pointed to his dead
countess, who lay high up against the wall, her hands clasped, unmindful
for evermore of the six feet of carved cupids and lilies that upheld
her. On high pedestals at head and foot of her magnificent couch the
pale flames rose from tarnished golden candlesticks. The blue hangings
of the room, with their white fleurs-de-lis, were faded, like the rugs
on the old dim floor; for the splendor of the Croisacs had departed with
the Bourbons. The count lived in the old chateau because he must; but he
reflected bitterly to-night that if he had made the mistake of bringing
a young girl to it, there were several things he might have done to save
her from despair and death.

"Pray for her," he said to the priest. "And you will bury her in the
old cemetery. It was her last request."

He went out, and the priest sank on his knees and mumbled his prayers
for the dead. But his eyes wandered to the high narrow windows through
which the countess had stared for hours and days, stared at the
fishermen sailing north for the _grande peche_, followed along the shore
of the river by wives and mothers, until their boats were caught in the
great waves of the ocean beyond; often at naught more animate than the
dark flood, the wooded banks, the ruins, the rain driving like needles
through the water. The priest had eaten nothing since his meagre
breakfast at twelve the day before