"Thanks to the darkness, they had thrust the stiletto between my body and my left arm, which was closely pressed against my side. Owing to the slight resistance which the blade of the dagger met in passing through this narrow space, it might be supposed that it had penetrated my breast. It was this mistake that saved me, and I escaped with only a slight wound in my arm!" "How fortunate!" said Bertha, "I have told you that my first movement, when I awoke, was to seize the hand which I felt pressing upon me, suddenly that hand became icy cold; I extended my other hand and touched a woman's gown. I smelt a slight perfume, such as Paula always used,--a horrid idea possessed my mind. I remembered the poison at Trieste--I had no longer any doubt. This revelation was so overwhelming that I cannot describe what passed within me; my reason wandered, and for some seconds I believed myself the sport of some horrible dream. During this vertigo the hand I had seized broke away, and when I recovered I was alone and still in darkness. 'Frantz! Frantz!' I cried, knocking at the wainscot which separated me from the closet in which my servant was. Frantz was not asleep, and in a minute entered the room bearing a light in his hand." "And your wife?" inquired Bertha. "Imagine my surprise!--my amazement! I almost doubted my senses! Paula was soundly asleep in the arm-chair by the fire-side." "She feigned sleep," said Pierre Raimond. "I was bewildered! She was asleep, or rather she pretended deep and quiet sleep so perfectly that her soft and regular breathing was not in the slightest degree affected by the terrible emotion she must unquestionably have felt. Her features were calm, her mouth slightly open, her complexion lightly tinged with the flush of sleep, and her countenance usually so serious was then almost smiling." "It is scarcely credible," exclaimed Pierre Raimond; "what! your wife slept tranquilly after such an attempt?" "Her sleep, I assure you, was so perfectly serene that I could not believe my eyes. Pale and haggard, I looked at her almost with affright." "And there were no other women but herself in the _auberge_?" asked Bertha. "None." "And the young girl, the Bohemian?" inquired Pierre Raimond. "Was in bed in a room which led out of the room in which Frantz was watching--he did not sleep--had a light, and it was impossible to enter our apartment without being seen." "It must then have been so--this time--it must have been she!" said Bertha. "_Mon Dieu!_ is such a crime possible?" "The dissimulation astonishes me more than the crime," said Pierre Raimond. "A last proof left me without any doubt," added Arnold; "on the floor at the feet of my wife, I saw a Florentine dagger--a valuable weapon chiselled by Benvenuto Cellini, which had been, I believe, left to Paula by her father."