One would have thought nothing could add to the terror of this scene. Yet it was added to. The baroness rang her bell violently in the room below. She had heard Josephine’s scream and fall.
At the ringing of this shrill bell Rose shuddered like a maniac, and grovelled on her knees to Raynal, and seized his very knees and implored him to show some pity.
“O sir! kill us! we are culpable”—
Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! pealed the baroness’s bell again.
“But do not tell our mother. Oh, if you are a man! do not! do not! Show us some pity. We are but women. Mercy! mercy! mercy!”
“Speak out then,” groaned Raynal. “What does this mean? Why has my wife swooned at sight of me?—whose is this child?”
“Whose?” stammered Rose. Till he said that, she never thought there COULD be a doubt whose child.
Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring!
“Oh, my God!” cried the poor girl, and her scared eyes glanced every way like some wild creature looking for a hole, however small, to escape by.
Edouard, seeing her hesitation, came down on her other side. “Whose is the child, Rose?” said he sternly.