of being in collusion with the stranger. All of them were old servants, grown gray in the service of Raimond V.
Reared, so to speak, by them, she was too well acquainted with their life and morality to believe them capable of underhand manoeuvres. The fact that the picture was placed on her praying-stool in her chamber, disquieted her above all.
She was on the point of going to her father and telling him all, but an instinctive love of the marvellous restrained her; she feared to break the charm. Her romantic character found a sort of pleasure, mingled with fear, in this mystery.
Inaccessible to superstition, of a firm and decided mind, and recognising the fact that, after all, there was nothing really dangerous in allowing this strange adventure to take its course, Reine reassured herself, after searching her chamber and the connecting one very carefully.
She took up the picture again, looked at it for some time, then, after dreaming awhile, she threw it into the fire.
She followed the destruction of this little masterpiece with a melancholy gaze.
By a strange chance the vellum, detached from the frame, caught first on both sides.
Thus the figure of Erebus burned the last and was outlined a moment on the burning embers,—then a light flame leaped upon it, and all disappeared.
Reine remained a long time gazing in the fireplace, as though she still saw there the picture which had been consumed.
The clock of Maison-Forte struck two in the morning; the young girl returned to her senses, went to bed, and, for a long time, tried to fall asleep.
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