Whether he left or not, the young woman intended to profit by the going and coming of Marguerite, and to make herself heard by rapping either on the door of the corridor or the blinds of the dining-room, and thus gain an entrance into her chamber.
But the terrible influence of the cold—the rapid and piercing effects of which were unknown to Madame Bastien—froze, so to speak, her thoughts, as it froze her limbs.
At the end of the half-hour the exhausted woman yielded to an unconquerable drowsiness, from which she would rise a moment by sheer force of courage, to fall back again into a deeper sleep than before.
About three o'clock in the morning, the light that Marguerite carried had several times shone through the window-blinds, and her steps had resounded behind the front door.
But Marie, in an ever increasing torpor, saw nothing and heard nothing.
Fortunately, in one of the rare periods when she succeeded in rousing herself from her stupor, she trembled at the voice of Bastien; as he went out with Bridou he noisily drew the bolt of the door.
At the voice of her husband the young woman, by an almost superhuman effort of will, roused herself from her stupor, rose, although stiff and almost bent double by the icy cold, went out of the porch, and hid herself behind one of the ivy-covered posts, just as the door opened before Bastien and Bridou, who went out through the garden gate. Marie, seeing the two men depart, slipped into the house and reached her chamber without having met Marguerite. But the moment she rang, her strength failed, and she fell on the floor unconscious.
The servant ran at the sound of her mistress's bell, found her lying in the middle of the floor, and cried, as she stooped to lift her up:
"Great God! madame, what has happened to you?"
"Silence!" murmured the young woman in a feeble voice; "do not wake my son! Help me to get back to bed."