The poor creature's mind doubtlessly ran upon the circumstances of the fateful night when her husband strangled his fourth wife, shortly after having used these very words towards his then favorite slave: 'Come, come, confounded wench!' Neroweg's words threw his wife into greater perturbation and frightened her to a degree that all she was able to say was: "Monseigneur! Monseigneur! Mercy!" "What! What ails you? Answer!" shouted the count brutally. "Do you, perchance, object that I told Morise to come? Dare you cross me?" "No! Oh, no! Is not monseigneur master in this place? Are not his female slaves at his orders? And am not I, Godegisele, myself, his humble servant?" And the unhappy woman, wholly losing her head in her terror, as she imagined herself on the point of being strangled like Wisigarde, who owed her death to her refusal to light her husband and his night's companion to the conjugal bed, hastened to stammer: "On the contrary--if monseigneur wishes, I shall light him to his bed with this lamp." "Oh, madam!" Morise whispered to her mistress. "What an unfortunate inspiration is that! It is to recall to the count's memory the murder of his other wife." Indeed, at the last words of Godegisele a shudder ran through Neroweg; he brusquely stepped towards her; seized her threateningly by the arm and bellowed in a maudlin voice: "Why do you propose to light me to bed with a lamp?" "Mercy, monseigneur! Do not kill me!"--and she dropped upon her knees. "Oh, do not kill me, your servant, as you killed Wisigarde." The count suddenly grew as pale as his wife, and, stricken with a terror that stimulated his inebriety, he cried: "She knows that I strangled Wisigarde! She is uttering the same words that Wisigarde uttered when I killed her! This is the work of some evil spirit! Wisigarde herself or her spectre will perhaps appear this night before my bed and torment me! It is a warning from heaven--or from hell. The devil must be conjured away!" And turning to Morise: "Run quick for the clerk! He shall pray at my side during the night--he shall not leave me. The spectre of Wisigarde will not dare to approach me with a priest at my side." The count's terror increased amain while Morise ran out for the clerk, and Godegisele, more dead than alive with fear, clung on her knees to the beam as she felt her strength wholly leaving her. The count noticed not her distress, but also dropping on his knees smote his chest and cried: "Lord, God! Have mercy upon a miserable sinner! I paid for my brother's death, I paid for the death of my wife Wisigarde, I shall pay still more to keep Wisigarde from haunting me! I shall to-morrow start the building of the chapel in the fastness of Allange; I shall have the villa of Bishop Cautin rebuilt! Lord! Good Lord God! Have mercy upon a miserable sinner! Deliver me from the devil and from the spectre of Wisigarde!"