She clutched him,
uttered a low scream, and buried her head in the bedclothes. 'Oh,
take it away--please take it away!' she implored.
'All in good time namely, when you love me best,' he returned
calmly. 'You don't quite yet--eh?'
'I don't know--I think--O Uplandtowers, have mercy--I cannot bear
it--O, in pity, take it away!'
'Nonsense; one gets accustomed to anything. Take another gaze.'
In short, he allowed the doors to remain unclosed at the foot of the
bed, and the wax-tapers burning; and such was the strange
fascination of the grisly exhibition that a morbid curiosity took
possession of the Countess as she lay, and, at his repeated request,
she did again look out from the coverlet, shuddered, hid her eyes,
and looked again, all the while begging him to take it away, or it
would drive her out of her senses. But he would not do so as yet,
and the wardrobe was not locked till dawn.
The scene was repeated the next night. Firm in enforcing his
ferocious correctives, he continued the treatment till the nerves of
the poor lady were quivering in agony under the virtuous tortures
inflicted by her lord, to bring her truant heart back to
faithfulness.
The third night, when the scene had opened as usual, and she lay
staring with immense wild eyes at the horrid fascination, on a
sudden she gave an unnatural laugh; she laughed more and more,
staring at the image, till she literally shrieked with laughter:
then there was silence, and he found her to have become insensible.
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