"_Mon Dieu!_" the captain muttered, while one woman broke into noisy weeping. "She is mad!"
But madame was not mad, or only mad for the moment. "It is strange," she continued, with writhing lips, but in the same even tone--which to those who had ears to hear was worse than any loud outcry--"that such a thing should be. God should not let it be, because I loved him. I loved him, and I have killed him. I--but perhaps I shall awake presently and find it a dream. Or perhaps he is not dead. Is he? Ha! is he, man? Tell me!"
With the last words, which leapt from her lips in sudden frantic questioning, she awoke as from a trance. She sprang towards the doctor; then, turning swiftly, looked where the corpse lay, and with a dreadful peal of laughter threw herself upon it. Her shrill cries so filled the air, so rang through the empty hall below, so pierced the brain, that the captain raised his hands to his ears, and the men shrank back, looking at the women.
"See to her!" said the captain, stamping his foot in a rage and addressing the physician. "I must take her away, but I cannot take her like this. See to her, man. Give her something; drug her, poison her, if you like--anything to stop her! Her cries will ring in my ears a twelvemonth hence. Well, woman, what is it?" he continued impatiently. Madame's woman had touched his arm.
"The boy!" she muttered. "The boy!" Her teeth were chattering with terror. She pointed to the place where the servants stood most thickly near the great curtains which shut off the staircase.
He followed the direction of her hand, but saw nothing except scared faces and cringing figures. "What boy, woman?" he retorted. "What do you mean?"
"The boy who came after us to the church," she answered. "I saw him a minute ago--there! He was standing behind that man, looking under his arm."
Three strides brought the captain of the watch to the place indicated. But there was no boy there--there was no boy to be seen. Moreover, the frightened servants who stood in that part declared that they had seen no boy--that no boy could have been there. The captain, believing that they had had eyes only for Madame de Vidoche, put small faith in their protestations; but the fact remained that the boy was gone, and the searcher returned baffled and perplexed: more than half inclined to think that this might be a ruse on the woman's part, yet at a loss to see what good it could do her. He asked her roughly how old the boy was.