"She is asleep too," replied the nurse; "she has not given a cry for an hour."
"That's strange!" said the man. "I thought babies cried every five minutes."
Upon second thoughts, the nurse judged it strange too; and a certain sort of cold dread came upon her as she remembered her long absence, and combined it with the perfect stillness.
"Stay a moment: I'll just take a peep and tell you more;" and she advanced noiselessly to the side of the bed. The moment she gazed in, she uttered a fearful shriek. Nature was too strong for art or policy. There lay the mother dead; the infant gone; and she screamed aloud, though she knew that the whole must be told, and her own negligence exposed.
The man darted in from the door, and rushed to the side of the bed. The bloody evidences of the deed which had been done were plain before him, and catching the nurse by the arm, he questioned her vehemently.
She was a friend of his, however--indeed, I believe, a relation--and first came a confession, and then a consultation. She declared she had not been absent five minutes, and that the deed must have been done within that short time; that somebody must have been concealed in the room at the time she left, for she had been so close at hand that she must have seen any one pass. She went on to declare that she believed it must have been done by sorcery; and as sorcery was in great repute at that time, the man might have been of her opinion, if the gore and the wound had not plainly shown a mortal agency.
Then came the question of what was to be done. The duke must be told--that was clear; and it was agreed by both the man and the woman that it would be better for them to bear their own tale.
"Do not let us tell him all at once," said the good lady, for horror and grief had by this time been swallowed up in more personal considerations; "he would kill us both on the spot, I do believe. Tell him, at first, that she is very ill; then, when he is going to see her, that she is dying; then that she is dead. And then--and then--let him find out himself that she has been murdered. Good gracious! I should not wonder if the murderer was still in the room. Did you not think you saw the curtain move?" and she gave a fearful glance toward the bed.
The man unsheathed his sword, and for the first time they searched the room, which they had never thought of before.
Nothing, however, could be found--not a vestige of the murderer--the very dagger that had done the deed was now gone; and after some further consultation, and some expressions of horror and regret, they set out to bear the intelligence to the Duke of Orleans, neglecting, in the fear of any one forestalling them, to give any directions for pursuit of the murderer.