"Oh, madam!" Morise whispered to her mistress. "What an unfortunate inspiration is that! It is to recall to the count's memory the murder of his other wife."
Indeed, at the last words of Godegisele a shudder ran through Neroweg; he brusquely stepped towards her; seized her threateningly by the arm and bellowed in a maudlin voice:
"Why do you propose to light me to bed with a lamp?"
"Mercy, monseigneur! Do not kill me!"--and she dropped upon her knees. "Oh, do not kill me, your servant, as you killed Wisigarde."
The count suddenly grew as pale as his wife, and, stricken with a terror that stimulated his inebriety, he cried:
"She knows that I strangled Wisigarde! She is uttering the same words that Wisigarde uttered when I killed her! This is the work of some evil spirit! Wisigarde herself or her spectre will perhaps appear this night before my bed and torment me! It is a warning from heaven--or from hell. The devil must be conjured away!"
"Run quick for the clerk! He shall pray at my side during the night--he shall not leave me. The spectre of Wisigarde will not dare to approach me with a priest at my side."
The count's terror increased amain while Morise ran out for the clerk, and Godegisele, more dead than alive with fear, clung on her knees to the beam as she felt her strength wholly leaving her. The count noticed not her distress, but also dropping on his knees smote his chest and cried:
"Lord, God! Have mercy upon a miserable sinner! I paid for my brother's death, I paid for the death of my wife Wisigarde, I shall pay still more to keep Wisigarde from haunting me! I shall to-morrow start the building of the chapel in the fastness of Allange; I shall have the villa of Bishop Cautin rebuilt! Lord! Good Lord God! Have mercy upon a miserable sinner! Deliver me from the devil and from the spectre of Wisigarde!"
And the fervent and devout believer, besotted with terror and intoxication, furiously smote his chest as, filled with frightful anxiety, he awaited the arrival of the clerk.
Such was the humanity, generousness, enlightenment of the race of the conquerors of old Gaul! What a tender attachment to their wives! What a respect for the sweet bonds of the family and for the sanctity of the domestic hearth! Oh, our mothers! Virile matrons, so venerated by our ancestors! Proud Gallic women of yore, who sat beside your husbands at the solemn councils of the state, where peace and war were decided upon! Wives beloved, valiant and strong in arms! Holy virgins! Women emperors! O, Margarid, Hena, Meroë, Loyse, Genevieve, Ellen, Sampso, Victoria the Great--rejoice! Rejoice that you have quitted this world for the mysterious worlds where we shall live forever! Rejoice at the strongness of your hearts! What indignation, what shame, what a grief to your souls at the sight of your sisters--although of a different race from your own and hostile--at the sight of women--the wives of kings, seigneurs and warriors--treated, the wicked and the good alike, with such contempt and ferocity by their barbarous husbands!