"Is this a nightmare?" cried Amélie. Then with supreme disdain, she added, "Not even René, himself, could obtain from me what you propose. My life is in your hands, the life of the woman whom your son loves. But my will you cannot conquer. Drag me to the altar I will say no with my last breath."
The Duchess seemed taken aback at the emphasis with which the refusal was spoken. She revealed her true character, that of a pompous impertinent woman, performing awkwardly an assigned role. With an angry gesture, she passed into the adjoining apartment, and held for ten minutes or more a whispered conference with others. She' returned accompanied by her two attendants, one of whom looked at Amélie in a peculiar manner. Both approached the bed whereon Baby was lying and lifted him up. The frightened child commenced to cry and Amélie ran to him, but they snatched him from her arms and disappeared.
"If you love the child so greatly," observed the Duchess, "you may have the happiness of his company by consenting to marry Jean Vilon. He is pretty badly spoilt, owing to the manner in which you have brought him up. Jean is willing to adopt him. Is he really your own? Well, we shall soon be able to judge of that."
The Duchess retired and the doors were barred and bolted after her. Amélie realized that she was indeed a prisoner.
[Chapter V]
THE CHILD
Imprisonment could not subdue her. She would have died rather than yield. Her father's fate, her lover's fate and the fate of dear little Dick, weighed each moment more heavily on her heart. The Duchess's visit to Picmort signified much; it indicated that the police had discovered their plans.
"If my father," she thought during the long sleepless hours, "had been received by his sister, if his rights had been recognized, the Duchess would not have dared to outrage me with this proposition. Can René be imprisoned? He must be living, or his mother would not seek to marry me to Jean Vilon. In this plot, I see the hand of Volpetti. I wonder if the spy was not one of the servants. I think I recognized him. O they would be rid of me, and, not daring to kill me, they think to marry me basely. For so could the Duchess free her son and they have one more pretext for disclaiming my father's pretensions—But Baby Dick? What is to become of him?"
Terror stricken she walked the floor. She began to comprehend how great was the love which bound her to the frail being to whom she had been playing the role of mother. She reproached herself cruelly for having contributed to orphan the little fellow. His beauty, his grief at being separated from her, his caresses, his cunning little ways, all these surged to her mind and seemed to obliterate her other griefs.