I felt she was speaking the truth, for her dear cold hands were shivering in mine, and her mouth was stuttering with terror. * * * * * Still under the excitement of an imbecile happiness, which increased my strength and agility tenfold, I climbed the trellis, hand over fist, and jumped down on the other side of the wall. I found my car in its garage of greenery. I piled in my parcels as fast as I could. I was ridiculously happy. Emma should be mine, and what a mistress she would make!--a woman who had not recoiled before the duty of bringing to a friend, now become a repulsive thing, the consolation of her visits. But now it was I who was favored, I was sure of that. How could that Macbeth love her? Nonsense! She had lied to me merely to rouse my passions. She merely had pity on him. But now, when I came to think of it, how had madness come upon the Scot, and why was Lerne keeping it secret? My uncle maintained that Macbeth had gone away. Then why did he keep poor Nell in prison? I understood her sorrow at the window, and her rancor against the Professor. Some drama had taken place in her prison, in which Lerne, Emma and Macbeth were the personages--a drama which was the result of some grievous fault, indeed, no doubt; but what _was_ the drama? I should soon find out. A woman has no secrets from her lover, and that is what I was going to be. My joy generally manifests itself in the form of a song. If I remember rightly, I hummed the air of a Spanish dance as I went along, and I only interrupted it suddenly because the remembrance of the old shoe, now full of sinister meaning intruded on my reflections, as the Red Death rises menacing in the midst of a ball. Instantly my cheerfulness drooped. The sun went down in the depth of my thoughts. All things became dark, suspicious and threatening. There was a great revulsion within me, the most dreadful guesses appeared certainties and even the image of Emma faded away. A prey to the terrors of the unknown, I re-entered that dungeon-castle and that garden-tomb, where the beautiful Demon awaited me, standing between a madman and a corpse. CHAPTER VI NELL--THE ST. BERNARD Some days passed without any event which could satisfy either my love or my curiosity. Had Lerne grown suspicious of me, and contrived to have all my time taken up? In the morning, he would invite me to accompany him--one day on foot, and another in the motor-car. During those outings we would talk at random of scientific matters, and he would question me as if he really wished to judge of my capabilities. With the motor-car we used to cover much ground. In our walks, my uncle usually took the road which led straight to Grey. He would often stop, the better to hold forth, and never went beyond the skirts of the wood. Often in the midst of a dissertation or a jest, after we had started walking or driving, Lerne would suddenly go back, distrusting the people he had left at Fonval.