"Yes, it is horrible! but it will not be difficult to find something better. Good-bye!" he answered in the same language.
"Don't leave me alone with these people too long. Come back soon; I am afraid," she added, still using the French tongue.
"Really?" the prince answered, laughing; but a ray of pleasure sparkled in his eyes.
Meanwhile, the little girl who was asleep on the sofa had waked and now came into the room.
The countess requested every one to retire that she might rest, and the peasants modestly withdrew. But when she tried to fasten the door, it had neither lock nor bolt, only a little wire hook which slipped into a loose ring.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, startled. "I cannot lock it."
"You need have no anxiety," replied the old man soothingly, "we sleep in the next room." But the vicinity of those strange people, when she could not lock the door, was exactly what the countess feared.
She slipped the miserable wire hook into its fastening and sat down on one of the beds, which had no mattresses--nothing but sacking.
Covering her face with her hands, she gave free course to indignant tears. She still wore her hat and cloak, which she had not ventured to take off, from a vague feeling of being encompassed by perils whence she might need to fly at any moment. In such a situation, surely it was safer not to lay aside one's wraps. If the worst came, she would remain so all night. To go to bed in a house where the roof might fall and such strange figures were stealing about, was too great a risk. Beside the bed on which the countess sat was a door, which, amid all the terrors, she had not noticed. Now it seemed as though she heard a scraping noise like the filing of iron. Then came hollow blows and a peculiar rattling. Horrible, incomprehensible sounds! Now a blow fell upon the door, whose fastening was little better than the other. And now another.
"The very powers of hell are let loose here," cried the countess, starting up. Her cold, wet feet seemed paralyzed, her senses were on the verge of failing. And she was alone in this terrible strait. Where were the servants? Perhaps they had been led astray, robbed and murdered--and meanwhile the storm outside was raging in all its fury.