An inward heat overflowed her from head to foot, sending
the life's blood to her heart with such violence that the surface of
her body felt bathed in ice. From that hour not a day had passed that
the sense of secret terror did not check every impulse of her innocent
gaiety. The memory of the look, of the inflections of voice with which
the count accompanied his words, still froze her blood, and silenced
her sufferings, as she leaned over that sleeping head, and strove to
see some sign of a pity she had vainly sought there when awake.
The child, threatened with death before its life began, made so
vigorous a movement that she cried aloud, in a voice that seemed like
a sigh, "Poor babe!"
She said no more; there are ideas that a mother cannot bear. Incapable
of reasoning at this moment, the countess was almost choked with the
intensity of a suffering as yet unknown to her. Two tears, escaping
from her eyes, rolled slowly down her cheeks, and traced two shining
lines, remaining suspended at the bottom of that white face, like
dewdrops on a lily.
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