During this nervous spasm, though his eyes were closed, Frederick wept bitterly, and when he recovered consciousness and saw his mother leaning over him he held out his arms and pressed her tenderly to his breast. This crisis over, he seemed much more calm, and, remarking that he chiefly needed rest and quiet now, he turned his face toward the wall and did not utter another word.
With rare presence of mind, Marie had ordered all the outside shutters of her son's room closed before he was taken into it. There was no way of reaching the room except through hers, where she intended to watch all night, with the communicating door slightly ajar.
She was not one of those persons who are paralysed by misfortune. Terrible as the discovery she had just made was, as soon as she was alone she faced it resolutely, after vainly endeavouring to persuade herself that her son had not been sane when he premeditated such an execrable crime.
"I can no longer doubt that Frederick hates the young marquis with a mortal hatred," she said to herself, "and this long suppressed animosity is undoubtedly the cause of the great change which has taken place in him during the last few months. This hatred has attained such an intensity that my son, after having attempted to kill M. de Pont Brillant, cannot be induced to abandon that horrible idea even now. These are unquestionably the facts of the case. Now to what mysterious circumstance am I to impute the origin and the development of such a deadly animosity against a youth of his own age? How is it that my son, who has been so carefully reared, and who has heretofore made me the proudest and happiest of mothers, can have conceived such a horrible idea? All this is of secondary importance, so I will postpone the solution of these questions which puzzle my reason and make me doubt myself until some later day. What I must do now and without delay is to save my son from this terrible temptation, and thus prevent him from committing a murder."
And after having satisfied herself that her son was sleeping quietly, she seated herself at a table and wrote the following letter to her husband:
"To M. BASTIEN:—I wrote you only a few days ago in relation to Frederick's poor health and to the departure of the tutor you had authorised me to employ.
"My son's condition causes me great uneasiness, and I realise the urgent necessity of taking some decided action in the matter.
"I consulted our friend, Doctor Dufour, again yesterday. He feels certain that Frederick's age and rapid growth is the cause of his nervous and morbid condition, and advises me to divert his mind from himself as much as possible, or, better still, travel with him.
"This I am anxious to do, as in the seclusion in which we live it is almost impossible for me to give Frederick any diversion.
"It is hardly probable that your business will allow you to accompany us to Hyères, where I wish to take my son, but Marguerite will accompany us, and we may be absent five or six months, or a much shorter time, as that will depend upon the improvement in Frederick's health.