The night was terrible. During the first part Baby sobbed incessantly, tho his voice grew fainter and fainter. At last it died out altogether. She grew frantic and running to the windows, called aloud: "Jean Vilon! Jean Vilon! Wretch! Is it thus you obey your master?" Then, as silence followed: "René! René!" Then: "Silvano! Silvano!" But no answer came. Picmort, the grim giant, was silent. Again she ran to the door separating her from Dick. He was speaking to her but in a voice so faint that it was scarcely more than a murmur. "He will die! he will die!" she wailed. "No child can resist such treatment. God have mercy on us both. What have I done to bring such suffering on this baby?--But I might save him; yes, if I renounce René forever. No, no! Rather perish the entire world. These fiends would defeat me through my sense of pity. Well, they shall not. I shall be stone. What is this child to me? Have I not once saved his life?--Perhaps my father was right. We have spilt blood--O no, no! My father you were weak and that weakness is my undoing--And now my pity for this child is making me also a weakling." She broke into bitter weeping. Dick was calling: "Mamma! Mamma!" She crept to the door and whispered: "My heaven, be patient. Very soon you shall have food and be with me." With an air of a somnambulist did Amélie comb out her long blond hair and arrange it in its accustomed style. Then she performed her entire toilet, laughing stridently from time to time. Sometimes tears would trickle fast down her beautiful face, so pale and worn with its great anxiety. When at noon the silent attendant brought the meal, she said to him: "Tell the Duchess de Rousillon that I shall comply with her wishes, provided she has the door opened immediately which separates me from the child." Chapter VI THE MARRIAGE