It was only when the sun had already risen over the tops of the trees, that Aigleta came by with weary eyes and pale face, listless and absorbed in her own thoughts. When she saw Geoffroy lying in the garden, she was horror-stricken as though she had seen a ghost, and it was only when she ascertained that he was breathing that she bent down to wake him. "You still here?" she whispered. "And where is--your wife?" He sprang up in haste, and without answering a word, rushed to his turret. When he opened the door, he gave a cry like a man mortally wounded, and fell upon the bed. There lay his young bride, one hand pressed to her heart, from which a little stream of blood still flowed, her other hand rested on the song-book, which was open at its last page, and the white fingers pointed to a newly written line that ran thus in the language of Provence: Lo deuteire paqua al crezedor tot lo deute. The debtor pays to the creditor all the debt. * * * * * It was noon before the servants ventured carefully to apprise Count Hugo of the heart-rending truth. He listened to the tidings as though he did not rightly understand their purport; even when they led him down to where his child, like a proud and beautiful statue of whitest marble, lay outstretched on the bed he knew so well, he gave no token of what he felt, spoke not a word, shed not a tear. All night he shut himself up with the dead. The next morning he ordered a bier to be prepared. He would redeem his word, he said, and carry the bride to her bridegroom. The servants silently obeyed. Geoffroy--who might else have put in his claim--lay in a raging fever, tended by Aigleta; his wound on the forehead had burst open afresh, and no salve availed to close it. When the procession came to Gaillac, Count Hugo at its head, the dead bride on a high bier borne by his servants, a great crowd of peasants and retainers behind, the bride's father sent a herald in advance to blow his trumpet three times, and cry with a loud voice, "The debtor pays to the creditor all that he owes him!" At this cry, Count Pierre de Gaillac appeared on the balcony of his castle; but when he saw the lamentable spectacle he turned away horrified, and violently signed to them to go back, that he would have no such wedding. Then he flung himself on his horse and rode far away, and only returned after many days a broken-down man who had forgotten how to laugh.