“Listen to me,” he said in his strongest voice, “and remember my words. I will never see or hear the little monster you hold in your arms. He is your child, and not mine; there is nothing of me in him. Hide him, I say, hide him from my sight, or--”
“Just God!” cried the countess, “protect us!”
“Silence!” said her husband. “If you do not wish me to throttle him, see that I never find him in my way.”
“Then,” said the countess gathering strength to oppose her tyrant, “swear to me that if you never meet him you will do nothing to injure him. Can I trust your word as a nobleman for that?”
“What does all this mean?” said the count.
“If you will not swear, kill us now together!” cried the countess, falling on her knees and pressing her child to her breast.
“Rise, madame. I give you my word as a man of honor to do nothing against the life of that cursed child, provided he lives among the rocks between the sea and the house, and never crosses my path. I will give him that fisherman’s house down there for his dwelling, and the beach for a domain. But woe betide him if I ever find him beyond those limits.”
“Look at him!” she said. “He is your son.”
At that word, the frightened mother carried away the child whose heart was beating like that of a bird caught in its nest. Whether innocence has a power which the hardest men cannot escape, or whether the count regretted his violence and feared to plunge into despair a creature so necessary to his pleasures and also to his worldly prosperity, it is certain that his voice was as soft as it was possible to make it when his wife returned.
“Jeanne, my dear,” he said, “do not be angry with me; give me your hand. One never knows how to trust you women. I return, bringing you fresh honors and more wealth, and yet, tete-Dieu! you receive me like an enemy. My new government will oblige me to make long absences until I can exchange it for that of Lower Normandy; and I request, my dear, that you will show me a pleasant face while I am here.”
The countess understood the meaning of the words, the feigned softness of which could no longer deceive her.
“I know my duty,” she replied in a tone of sadness which the count mistook for tenderness.
The timid creature had too much purity and dignity to try, as some clever women would have done, to govern the count by putting calculation into her conduct,--a sort of prostitution by which noble souls feel degraded. Silently she turned away, to console her despair with Etienne.