Lighting a candle, she gazed once more into the little glass. In the glimmering, flickering light she saw upon her livid cheek the traces of a bloody hand. Savin’s five fingers, which had been covered with blood from his wound, when he struck his wife, had left their imprint on her face. In a moment more she would have faced the throng with those marks upon her face—by which her husband had branded her as a criminal.
“Look! Madame Catherine has struck a light. She must be coming down,” said Mathieu.
“Hadn’t we better break it to her gently?” suggested somebody.
“Bah!” replied a woman. “She probably knew all about it before we did.”
Meantime Catherine washed away the stains as well as she could, but it seemed to her as though some of them never could be effaced. Down below all wondered why she was so long in coming. At length, after washing her face several times, she descended the stairs.
When she appeared on the threshold, her countenance, mobile and composed, was scrutinized by all, and suspiciously by many. On the doorstep, just as he had fallen, lay poor Savin. Catherine saw him, and a desolate cry escaped her. Falling on her knees she drew his head upon her lap, and with a passionate moan, more of remorse than of despair, she stroked his cold face. But to the spectators present it seemed but a bit of clever acting, and they manifested signs of distrust of her.
“She is playing a rôle,” cried Mathieu, sneeringly, but he was in error. For as she now looked upon his pale dead face, so drawn and still, all hatred of her husband disappeared, and her being was scourged by the thought that he had met his death because of her.
Suddenly a wild hope filled her heart. Leaning over her husband’s prostrate form, she pressed her ear against his breast.
“He still lives!” she cried. “He lives!”
Realizing that her hope was not in vain, her tears ceased to well up in her swollen eyes.