“Your father deserves punishment for his want of moral courage as well as your mother,” replied Madame d’Albret. “You had better go to bed now, and to-morrow give me your decision.”
“To-morrow will make no change, madame,” answered I, “but I fear that there is no chance of my escape. To-morrow my father will arrive for me as usual, and—but I have said it. You may preserve my life, madame, but how I know not,” and I threw myself down on the bed in despair.
Chapter Four.
About an hour afterwards Madame d’Albret, who had left me on the bed while she went down to her sister, came up again, and spoke to me, but from weakness occasioned by the loss of blood and from excitement, I talked for many minutes in the most incoherent manner, and Madame d’Albret was seriously alarmed. In the meantime the colonel had come home, and his wife explained what had happened. She led him up to my room just at the time that I was raving. He took the candle, and looked at my swelled features, and said, “I should not have recognised the poor girl. Mort de ma vie! but this is infamous, and Monsieur de Chatenoeuf is a contemptible coward. I will see him to-morrow morning.”
The colonel and his wife then left the room. By this time I had recovered from my paroxysm. Madame d’Albret came to me, and putting her face close to mine, said, “Valerie.”
“Yes, madame,” replied I.
“Are you more composed now? Do you think that you could listen to me?”
“Yes, madame, and thankfully,” replied I.