With unruffled composure he received their congratulations. He had a gracious look and a wellplaced word for each and for all. Urbane and placid, he withdrew himself from the hall.

Making a sign to his valet to follow him, Count Edmond, with a firm footstep, regained his own apartments. They were at the extreme end of the house. With his accustomed tranquillity, and in a voice no tone of which was shaken, he then said to the valet,

"I give you four minutes. Go, fetch me here four lackeys, or four of the stable-men-the tallest and strongest you can lay your hands on. Let them bring with them rope and cord-the stoutest that can be found, and plenty of it. Make haste."

The valet was accustomed to obey orders promptly, and without answering. Like master, like man. Count Edmond's serving-man was too well trained to permit himself on any occasion the impertinence of surprise. He was the most decorous of valets to the most decorous of counts. He bowed and withdrew. At the end of four minutes he was back with the men and the cords. Had his master told him to fetch four hangmen and four halters, he would have done hist best to give satisfaction.

The count bade his servant turn the key in the door.

He did so.

Edmond was standing at the foot of his bedstead. His right hand was closely wound about one of the ponderous pillars of twisted oak which sustained the ceiling of the bed. It was an antique bed, richly carved and heavily curtained.

The face of Edmond was livid.

"Bind me-quick-the hands-the feet-quick!” These words came broken, one by one, in a dry, unnatural voice, from his lips. He was breathing with difficulty.

The servants stared at him, stupefied, speechless. He did not speak again with his lips. His lips were locked, and his nostrils inflated. But his eyes spoke fiercely-entreaty growing into menace. Still the servants hesitated.

Then the bed began to creak and crack.

Suddenly the great bedpost, wrenched from its socket, flew up, spun round, and dashed against a large plate-glass mirror, which it shivered into splinters. The ceiling of the bed crashed in, and fell with a loud noise.

The dike was broken.

And the hideous overflow, no longer restrained or impeded, surged and seethed into every limb swollen with the strength of a giant.

It was only after long and furious struggle that those four athletes were able to subdue the madman. At last they bound his limbs with cords, and laid him on his bed, panting, exhausted, senseless.

Before leaving the chamber, the count's valet, who had not lost his presence of mind for a moment, imposed upon his four astonished subordinates the most solemn pledges of secrecy as to all that had happened. The count's apartments occupied the farthest portion of the least frequented wing of the quadrangle. Across the locked double doors no sound could have escaped to the other parts of the house. The valet

guessed that his unfortunate master, in his last moment of lucidity, must have counted upon this. When he had exacted secrecy from the four grooms, he left them in charge of the count, and quitted the room. He was gone to look for the countess.

M 2

CHAPTER VIII.

JULIET AFTER THE MARRIAGE.

JULIET, also, had retired early from the guestchamber.

Her mind was absorbed by a gentle melancholy; and, taking with her Theresa by the hand, she sought for relief to her feelings in conversation with her friend.

So the two women sat together, and talked on, in low tones, to each other; Juliet leaning on Theresa's bosom, and clasping Theresa's hand, and the quiet sunlight on the serious faces of them both.

Indeed, indeed, dear friend," Juliet said to Theresa, “I have well weighed the weight of this day, and the worth of it. I have long been asking myself whether what is now done was right and fit for me to do, and I have convinced myself that my duty lies here. Do I not owe it to Felix to remain by him that remains, faithful to him that was ever faithful and true; him that Felix loved so inexpressibly him whose life has been so strangely saddened by the loss of that beloved brother? This is what was in my mind this morning. I wished to set myself clear with my own heart; and when Edmond met me with such a holy calm upon his noble features, I blessed God that I was able to devote to him all my remaining life. But tell me, my Theresa, tell me, you who know all

my heart and all my life, whether in this I ought to reproach myself: when I stood just now before the altar, I felt separated from all around me, and my thoughts were of Felix. Again I seemed to hear those unforgotten words which he said to me in that first moment when our eyes were suddenly opened upon each other's hearts. Again I seemed to feel his arm about me, and to hear his voice, 'Never now, Juliet, can I leave thee. Here or there, in time and eternity, I am thine, and thou art mine.* When the priest blessed our union my feelings were strangely sad, strangely happy. The hand of Edmond, when he placed it in my own, was as cold as a dead man's hand; but at the touch of it I felt my whole frame thrilled by a sweet sensation which I had not felt for years. I had felt it first, and felt it only, long ago, when I used to walk with Felix hand in hand. I was overpowered by these recollections. I dropped my eyes toward the cold hand that was clasped in mine, and, oh Theresa! I fancied in that moment that I saw there my lost bridal ring-the ring I gave to Felix, the ring which Edmond had given to me; but the strange, unintelligible characters of it moved out of the visionary stone which I seemed to be seeing, and twined themselves about in sparkling violet light, like little fairy snakes, and wandered over both our hands like luminous veins; and the veins branched onward and upward over my whole being, and my life-blood seemed to be flowing through them, and they lighted up the interior of my soul. Multitudes

* These words were probably recorded in the missing page of Juliet's letter, p. 207.