“Finally, one evening, they resolved to paralyze my unconquerable resistance. One evening a powerful narcotic was mixed with my water. Scarcely had I finished my repast when I felt myself sink by degrees into a strange torpor. Though I was without suspicion, a vague fear seized me, and I tried to struggle against sleep. I arose. I endeavoured to run to the window and call for help, but my legs refused to carry me. It seemed as if the ceiling were sinking down on my head and crushing me under its weight. I stretched out my arms; I tried to speak; I could only utter inarticulate sounds. An irresistible faintness came over me. I supported myself by an armchair, feeling that I was about to fall, but this support was soon insufficient for my weak arms. I fell on one knee, then on both. I tried to pray, but my tongue was frozen. God, doubtless, neither heard nor saw me, and I sank down on the floor, a prey to a sleep which was like death.
“Of all that passed during my sleep, or the time that glided away while it lasted, I have no recollection. The only thing I recollect is, that I woke in bed, in a round chamber, the furniture of which was sumptuous and into which light penetrated only by an opening in the ceiling. Moreover, no door seemed to give entrance to the room. It might have been called a magnificent prison.
“It was long before I could make out where I was, or could take account of the details I describe. My mind seemed to strive in vain to shake off the heavy darkness of the sleep from which I could not rouse myself. I had vague perceptions of a space travelled over, of the rolling of a carriage, of a horrible dream in which my strength was exhausted; but all this was so dark and so indistinct in my mind that these events seemed to belong to another life than mine, and yet mixed with mine by a fantastic duality.
“For some time the state into which I had fallen appeared so strange that I thought I was dreaming. I arose tremblingly. My clothes were near me on a chair. I neither remembered having undressed myself, nor going to bed. Then little by little the reality broke upon me, full of chaste terrors. I was no longer in the house where I had been dwelling. As well as I could judge by the light of the sun, the day was already two-thirds gone. It was the evening before that I had fallen asleep; my sleep, then, must have already lasted nearly twenty-four hours! What had happened during this long sleep?
“I dressed myself as quickly as possible. My slow and stiff motions all attested that the effects of the narcotic were still not entirely dissipated. The chamber was evidently furnished for a woman’s reception; and the most finished coquette could not have formed a wish which, on looking round the apartment, she would not have found gratified.
“Certainly I was not the first captive who had been shut up in this splendid prison. But you understand, Felton, the more superb the prison, the greater was my terror.
“Yes, it was a prison, for I vainly tried to get out of it. I sounded all the walls in the hopes of discovering a door, but everywhere the walls returned a full, dull sound.
“I made the circuit of the room perhaps twenty times, in search of an outlet of some kind; there was none. I sank exhausted with fatigue and terror into an armchair.
“In the meantime night was rapidly coming on, and with night my terrors increased. I did not know but I had best remain where I was seated. I seemed to be surrounded by unknown dangers, into which I was likely to fall at every step. Although I had eaten nothing since the evening before, my fears prevented me from feeling hungry.
“No noise from without by which I could measure the time reached me. I only supposed it might be seven or eight o’clock in the evening, for it was October and quite dark.
“All at once a door, creaking on its hinges, made me start. A globe of fire appeared above the glazed opening of the ceiling, casting a strong light into my chamber, and I perceived with terror that a man was standing within a few paces of me.
“A table, with two covers, bearing a supper ready prepared, stood, as if by magic, in the middle of the apartment.
“That man was he who had pursued me during a whole year, who had vowed my dishonour, and who, by the first words that issued from his mouth, gave me to understand he had accomplished it the preceding night.”
“The scoundrel!” murmured Felton.
“Oh yes, the scoundrel!” cried milady, seeing the interest which the young officer, whose soul seemed to hang on her lips, took in her strange story—“oh yes, the scoundrel! He believed that, by having triumphed over me in my sleep, all was completed. He came, hoping that I should accept my shame, since my shame was consummated. He came to offer his fortune in exchange for my love.
“Alas! my desperate resistance could not last long. I felt my strength fail, and this time it was not my sleep that enabled the scoundrel to prevail, but my swooning.”
Felton listened without ****** any sound but a kind of suppressed roar. Only the sweat streamed down his marble brow, and his hand, under his coat, tore his breast.
“My first impulse on coming to myself was to feel under my pillow for the knife I had not been able to reach. If it had not come into play for defence, it might at least serve in expiation.
“‘Ah, ha!’ cried he, seizing my arm, and wresting from me the weapon, ‘you want to take my life, do you, my pretty Puritan? But this is more than dislike, this is ingratitude! Come, come, calm yourself, my sweet girl! I thought you were become kinder. I am not one of those tyrants who detain women by force. You don’t love me. With my usual fatuity, I doubted it; now I am convinced. To-morrow you shall be free.’
“I had but one wish, and that was that he should kill me.
“‘Beware!’ said I, ‘for my liberty is your dishonour.’
“‘Explain yourself, my pretty sibyl.’
“‘Yes; for no sooner shall I have left this place than I will tell everything. I will proclaim the violence you have used toward me. I will describe my captivity. I will denounce this palace of infamy. You are placed very high, my lord, but tremble! Above you there is the king. Above the king there is God.’
“Perfect master as he seemed over himself, my persecutor allowed a movement of anger to escape him. I could not see the expression of his face, but I felt the arm on which my hand was placed tremble.
“‘Then you shall not go from here,’ said he.
“At these words he retired. I heard the door open and shut, and I remained overwhelmed, yet less, I confess, by my grief than by the shame of not having avenged myself.”
