"Of course, for it seemed impossible that she should have gotten out by any but supernatural means. But at last we were obliged to accept the fact of her flight, wonderful as it was, and we sat down. Not so the marquis. He appeared to think that she had been transformed into a mouse, for he ran about, opening boxes, looking under tables, occasionally stopping to roar like a wild beast, or falling on his knees and weeping. Then he would begin his hunt again, and this lasted the whole day. We asked him to take some rest, and let his servants be sent out to search the woods, but he gave us no answer, still going round and round until dusk, when he called for lights. He kept up his search the whole night; and when the sun rose, and we awoke, we found him running to and fro, from one room to the other. In vain we pressed him to eat or to rest, he spoke not a word to any of us. Finally, one of the men laid hands on him to force him to sit down, when he drew back and struck him with such force that the blood spirted from his face, as he fell full length on the floor. The marquis went on in this manner for a week, each day growing paler and feebler, until at last he staggered like a drunken man."
"Unhappy lover!" exclaimed Barbesieur, with a shrug.
"Finally, the physician we had sent for came from Turin. By this time the marquis had fallen from exhaustion, and lay asleep. He was lifted to bed, and four men were set to watch him; for the doctor expected him to be violent when he waked. And so he was. He tried to leap out of bed, and was finally bound hand and foot. After a while, came his cousin from Venice, who took charge of him and of his property."
"Yes, to my cost," growled Barbesieur. "for he swindled me out of my pension."
"The Marquis Balbi-Strozzi inherits the estate, if the Marquis
Ottario dies without heirs," said Carlotta.
"The Marquis Ottario will not be such an ass as to die without heirs," cried Barbesieur, impatiently. "He shall be reconciled to his wife, or he shall marry some other woman, and beget children. The devil! He is a young man, and nobody dies of love, nowadays."
"He looks like a man of eighty," said Carlotta.
"He is much changed, then?"
"You would not know him, my lord."
"Perhaps not, but he will recover his youth with his health. What does he do all day, Carlotta? What does he say?"