The count had raised his two clenched fists and was shaking them in the Comtesse Hermine's face. He was trembling with rage and seemed on the point of striking her. She, however, remained impassive. She made no attempt to deny this latest accusation. It was as though everything had become indifferent to her, this unexpected charge as well as all those already leveled at her. She appeared to have no thought of impending danger or of the need of replying. Her mind was elsewhere. She was listening to something other than those words, seeing something other than what was before her eyes; and, as Bernard had remarked, it was as though she were preoccupied with outside happenings rather than with the terrible position in which she found herself.
But why? What was she hoping for?
A minute elapsed; and another minute.
Then, somewhere in the cellar, in the upper part of it, there was a sound, a sort of click.
The countess drew herself up. And she listened with all her concentrated attention and with an expression of such eagerness that nobody disturbed the tremendous silence. Paul Delroze and M. d'Andeville had instinctively stepped back to the table. And the Comtesse Hermine went on listening. . . .
Suddenly, above her head, in the very thickness of the vaulted ceiling, an electric bell rang . . . only for a few seconds. . . . Four peals of equal length. . . . And that was all.
CHAPTER XX
THE DEATH PENALTY—AND A CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
The Comtesse Hermine started up triumphantly; and this movement of hers was even more dramatic than the inexplicable vibration of that electric bell. She gave a cry of fierce delight, followed by an outburst of laughter. The whole expression of her face changed. It denoted no more anxiety, no more of that tension indicating a groping and bewildered mind, nothing but insolence, assurance, scorn and intense pride.
"Fools!" she snarled. "Fools! So you really believed—oh, what simpletons you Frenchmen are!—that you had me caught like a rat in a trap? Me! Me! . . ."