"No! Oh, no! Is not monseigneur master in this place? Are not his female slaves at his orders? And am not I, Godegisele, myself, his humble servant?"
And the unhappy woman, wholly losing her head in her terror, as she imagined herself on the point of being strangled like Wisigarde, who owed her death to her refusal to light her husband and his night's companion to the conjugal bed, hastened to stammer:
"On the contrary—if monseigneur wishes, I shall light him to his bed with this lamp."
"Oh, madam!" Morise whispered to her mistress. "What an unfortunate inspiration is that! It is to recall to the count's memory the murder of his other wife."
Indeed, at the last words of Godegisele a shudder ran through Neroweg; he brusquely stepped towards her; seized her threateningly by the arm and bellowed in a maudlin voice:
"Why do you propose to light me to bed with a lamp?"
"Mercy, monseigneur! Do not kill me!"—and she dropped upon her knees. "Oh, do not kill me, your servant, as you killed Wisigarde."
The count suddenly grew as pale as his wife, and, stricken with a terror that stimulated his inebriety, he cried:
"She knows that I strangled Wisigarde! She is uttering the same words that Wisigarde uttered when I killed her! This is the work of some evil spirit! Wisigarde herself or her spectre will perhaps appear this night before my bed and torment me! It is a warning from heaven—or from hell. The devil must be conjured away!"
And turning to Morise: