He saw them march forth without showing the rage Balsamo expected.
“Well, they have taken the casket but I have the woman,” he chuckled.
To make up for his defeat he began to ring his bell as though to break it.
“How is the lady getting on whom you took into the next room?”
“Very well indeed, my lord: for she got up and went out.”
“Got up? why, she could not stand.”
“That is so, my lord,” said the usher: “but five minutes or so after the Count of Fenix arrived, she awoke from her swoon, from which no scent would arouse her, and walked out. We had no orders to detain her.”
“The villain is a magician,” thought the magistrate. “I have the royal police and he Satan’s.”
That evening he was bled and put to bed: the shock was too great for him to bear, and the doctor said that if he had not been called in he would have died of apoplexy.
In the meantime the count had conducted the lady to her coach. She asked him to step in, and a groom led the Arab horse.