Suddenly the unhappy woman paused in her pacings to and fro, and started, and her heart throbbed painfully. A firm, sharp step, that she and those about her recognized, could be heard without in the antechamber and rapidly approaching. At once, the ladies rose and placed themselves in an attitude of respectful reverence, in which some fear was mingled. He was not given to control his sentiments, and his courtiers never knew in what mood he might be found.
The door flew open and the Emperor entered. He looked worried and confused. Like the Empress, he was in evening dress. The ladies all bent low before him.
Acknowledging their obeisance with the slightest movement of his head, he passed on towards Josephine.
The moment she had first hoped for, and then dreaded, had arrived. With a mighty effort she strove to close the door upon her fear and to assume a gladness she was far from feeling.
She sprang towards him with a joyous cry, and stretched out her arms to him, but her face was very pale, and there was a hunted expression in her eyes; she was trembling violently. All this Napoleon noted and a frown gathered on his brow. But for this, he would have responded in the same spirit to her tones and gesture. As it was, his greeting was chill and formal, and, the moment it was performed, he added in a cold, harsh tone:
"Come, Josephine, let us walk together in the corridor before dinner."
Filled with a nameless dread, and without a word, the Empress took his arm, and they passed from the apartment, the ladies meanwhile throwing expressive glances at each other. Threading the suite of rooms, they reached the gallery de François Premier. The long corridor, unlighted as it was, looked weird and uncanny in the twilight, and presented an almost endless vista. Its gloom and silence sent a shiver through the Empress; its aspect was so different from what it was when she had seen it last, illumined with thousands of wax candles and filled with courtiers in brilliant uniforms and ladies in elaborate toilettes; the walls echoing with the hum of sprightly conversation, broken every now and then by the rippling laugh of some fair woman. Now, not a sound, but their own footfalls, could be heard. Even the sculptured salamanders seemed to grin maliciously, and the figures on the tapestried walls to frown on her. With a shudder and involuntarily, she tightened her grasp upon her husband's arm.
The Emperor, on his part, strolled on almost joyously, but such joy as was in him was assumed. It was more a sense of satisfaction that an unpleasant business would soon be done with. Try as he might, he could not persuade himself that what he meditated was well. He saw the cruelty of the act to her; yet his Ministers desired it; said it would consolidate his power; that for him to found a dynasty would be good for France. But even now his heart was torn by the emotions that warred within.
At last, involuntarily, a cry of pity broke from him, "My poor Josephine," and he looked down upon her pityingly. She started with alarm; it was coming, what she feared.
"Napoleon," she gasped timidly, "What is it, and why do you look so strangely at me?" She led, almost dragged him, to a seat in a window that looked out upon a quaint old-fashioned garden, in which were yew trees pruned into formal and fantastic shapes, many of which, in the gathering darkness, looked like human figures standing motionless, surrounded by huge animals all still as death.