His affianced bride
on her knees, white as a ghost, trembling, and screaming, rather than
crying, for mercy. And Raynal standing over his wife, showing by the
working of his iron features that he doubted whether she was worthy he
should raise her.
One would have thought nothing could add to the terror of this scene.
Yet it was added to. The baroness rang her bell violently in the room
below. She had heard Josephine's scream and fall.
At the ringing of this shrill bell Rose shuddered like a maniac, and
grovelled on her knees to Raynal, and seized his very knees and implored
him to show some pity.
"O sir! kill us! we are culpable"--
Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! pealed the baroness's bell again.
"But do not tell our mother. Oh, if you are a man! do not! do not! Show
us some pity. We are but women. Mercy! mercy! mercy!"
"Speak out then," groaned Raynal. "What does this mean? Why has my wife
swooned at sight of me?--whose is this child?"
"Whose?" stammered Rose. Till he said that, she never thought there
COULD be a doubt whose child.
Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring!
"Oh, my God!" cried the poor girl, and her scared eyes glanced every way
like some wild creature looking for a hole, however small, to escape by.
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