Since Rudolph had informed her of the murder of Fleur-de-Marie, Countess Sarah M'Gregor, overwhelmed by this revelation, which ruined all her hopes, tortured by deep remorse, had been attacked by violent nervous spasms, and a frightful delirium; her wound, hardly healed, reopened, and a fainting fit of long duration had caused her attendants to suppose her dead. However, from the strength of her constitution, she did not sink under this severe attack; a new glimmering of life once more reanimated her. Seated in an arm-chair, in order to relieve the oppression which suffocated her, Sarah, almost regretting the death from which she had just escaped, was occupied with bitter thoughts. Suddenly Thomas Seyton entered the chamber of the countess; he with difficulty restrained some internal agitation; at a sign from him her two women withdrew. "How are you now?" said he to his sister. "In the same state--I am very weak, and from time to time almost suffocated. Why did not heaven take me away from this world during my last attack?" "Sarah," said Thomas Seyton, after a pause, "you are between life and death--a violent emotion might kill you, as it might save you." "I have now no more emotions to experience, my brother." "Perhaps--" "The death of Rudolph would find me indifferent; the ghost of my drowned daughter--drowned by my fault--is there--always there, before me. It is not an emotion--it is incessant remorse. I am really a mother now, since I no longer have a child." "I would prefer to find in you that cold ambition which made you regard your daughter as a means to realize the dream of your life." "The frightful reproaches of the prince have killed this ambition; the maternal sentiment is awakened in me at the picture of the extreme misery of my daughter." "And," said Seyton, hesitating and weighing each word, "if by chance-supposing an impossible thing--a miracle--you were informed that your daughter still lived--how would you support such a discovery?" "I should die with shame and despair at the sight of her." "Do not believe that--you would be too much elated with the triumph of your ambition; for, if your daughter had lived, the prince would have married you--he told you so." "In admitting this mad supposition, it seems to me that I should not have a right to live. After having received the hand of the prince, my duty would be to deliver him of an unworthy wife--my daughter of an unnatural mother."