Only hard man, but no woman, will be able to conceive that an æsthetic pleasure at the murderous tragedy found its way into Roquairol's frightful anguish. Julienne left the dead, and her old sorrow, and, with the new one, flung herself around her neck, and moaned: "O my Liana, my Liana! Seest thou not yet? Do look up at me!" The distracted and distracting brother led on the sister, upon whose pale cheeks only single drops fell like hard, cold water, with the sharp question: "Does no destroying angel, with red wings, whiz through thy night; hurls he no yellow vipers at thy heart, and no sword-fish into thy network of nerves, in order that they may be entangled therein, and whet their saw-teeth in the wounds? I am happy in my pain; such thistles scratch us up,[54] according to good moralists, and smooth us down too. Thou anguish-stricken blind one, what say'st thou,--have I made thee truly miserable again?" "Madman!" said Julienne, "let her alone: thou art destroying her." "O, he is not to blame for that," said Liana; "the headache long since made it misty to my eyes." The friends took their departure in double darkness, and therein will I leave it with all its agonies. Then Liana begged her maiden to say nothing of it to her mother so little time before sleep, since it might, perhaps, go away in the night. But in vain; the Minister's lady was accustomed to close her day on the bosom and lips of her daughter. The latter now came in, led along, and sought her mother's heart with a groping, sidelong motion, and, in this beloved neighborhood, could no longer refrain from a softer weeping; then, indeed, all was betrayed and confessed. The mother first sent for the Doctor before she, with wet eyes and with her gentle arms around her, heard her afflicted daughter's story. Sphex came, examined the eyes and pulse, and made no more of it than a nervous prostration. The Minister, who had everywhere in the house leading-hounds with fine--ears, came in, upon being informed; and while Sphex stood by, he made, except long strides, nothing but this little note, "_Voyez, Madame, comme votre le Cain[55] joue son rôle à merveille_."