He crossed himself and grasped the amulets which hung around his neck. Then, swiftly approaching Amélie, he kissed her on the forehead. His lips burned and she shrieked in horror. He walked rapidly out of the boudoir. His heavy feet sounded for a moment in the antechamber, then on the stairway, the narrow winding stairway leading to the tower's highest story. René and Amélie listened. Suddenly divining his intention, they ran after him. The tiny room was dark when they reached it, the window was curtained by a heavy obstruction which they realized was Jean. They darted to clutch him, but he rolled out before their eyes. Deeply affected, they looked down and beheld at the base of the tower the lifeless body of the grief-crazed Breton, with face upturned to the sky and glassy eyes gleaming amid the heavy blond hair. Silvano, the faithful mastiff, sat beside him, howling despairingly. Book V THE SISTER Chapter I PORTENTS The apartments of the royal palace which we now enter are those farthest removed from the stir and distractions of the court. The perennial austerity of their august occupant seems to have imparted to them a religious gloom. Owners bestow themselves upon their belongings. The human soul leaves back of itself its peculiar track, either luminous or sombre. The first impression made upon one entering the salons is of absolute silence. Noise would seem there a trespasser, a deep breath an infringing of etiquette. Servants and courtiers smother their voices and footfalls, suppress smiles and even dim the brightness of their eyes on addressing the Duchess,--the sad Duchess, who daily resembles more and more those rigid supplicating forms which guard sepulchres. After passing through a succession of reception rooms, screened from the sunlight by heavy draperies, and of appointments so symmetrically and solemnly arranged that it seems impossible they should ever be moved from their places, we come to the Duchess's boudoir. Passing the dormitory and visitors' room, we lift a tapestry portière and enter the small apartment which is her oratory. A richly wrought silver lamp is the only ornament, wherein float two burning wicks in perfumed oil. By the pale rays is discernible against a black velvet screen, a large marble figure of the Christ. He is represented at the moment of expiring, just when his head falls on his shoulder and he cries: "It is finished!" At the foot of the altar kneels a woman in fervent prayer. She rests on a crimson prie-Dieu and her eyes are raised to the Christ. The light falls full on her face and we see it is the Duchess.