"I am not at home to any one—let no one in, do you understand? absolutely no one."
The domestic retired, and to be more secure the lady locked the door.
La Chouette heard the orders given to the servant, and saw Sarah lock the door. The countess, turning to her, said, "Come in quickly, and shut the door."
La Chouette obeyed. Hastily opening a secretary, Sarah took from it an ebony casket, which she placed on a desk in the middle of the room, and made a sign for La Chouette to come near her. The casket contained many jewel-boxes placed one on the other, inclosing magnificent ornaments.
Sarah was so impatient to reach the bottom of the casket, that she threw out on the table the boxes, splendidly furnished with necklaces, bracelets, and diadems, where rubies, emeralds, and diamonds sparkled with a thousand fires. La Chouette was astonished. She was armed, she was shut up alone with the countess, her flight was easy, secure. An infernal idea crossed the mind of this monster. But to execute this new misdeed, she had to get her poniard from the basket, and draw near to Sarah, without exciting her suspicions. With the cunning of a tiger-cat, who crawls treacherously on its prey, the old woman profited by the pre-occupation of the countess to steal round the bureau which separated her from her victim. She had already commenced this treacherous evolution, when she was obliged to stop suddenly. Sarah drew a medallion from the bottom of the box, leaned on the table, handed it to La Chouette with a trembling hand, and said, "Look at this portrait."
"It is La Pegriotte!" cried La Chouette, struck with the great likeness; "the little girl who was given to me; I see her as she was when Tournemine brought her to me. There is her thick curly hair which I cut off at once, and sold well, ma foi!"
"You recognize her? Oh! I conjure you do not deceive me!"
"I tell you, my little lady, that it is La Pegriotte; it is as if I could see her before me," said La Chouette, trying to approach Sarah without being remarked; "even now she looks like this portrait. If you saw her, you would be struck with it."
Sarah had experienced no sorrow, no fright on learning that her child had, during ten years, lived miserable and abandoned. No remorse on thinking that she herself had torn her from the peaceful retreat where Rudolph had placed her. This unnatural mother did not at once interrogate La Chouette with terrible anxiety as to the past life of her child. No; ambition with Sarah had for a long time stifled maternal tenderness.
It was not joy at finding her daughter which transported her, it was the certain hope of seeing realized the proud dream of all her life. Rudolph was interested for this unfortunate creature, had protected without knowing her, what would be his joy when he discovered her to be his child! He was single, the countess a widow—Sarah already saw glisten before her eyes a sovereign's crown. La Chouette, still advancing with cautious steps, had already reached one end of the table, and placed her dagger perpendicularly in her basket, the handle close to the opening, quite ready. She was only a few steps from the countess, when the latter suddenly said, "Do you know how to write?" And pushing back with her hand the boxes and jewels, she opened a blotter placed before an inkstand.