"
"You must feel yourself very guilty to offer as the ransom of your
faults the love you owe me."
The count's voice was lugubrious and the bitter words were enforced by
a look which fell like lead upon the countess.
"My God!" she cried sorrowfully, "can innocence be fatal?"
"Your death is not in question," said her master, coming out of a sort
of reverie into which he had fallen. "You are to do exactly, and for
love of me, what I shall now tell you."
He flung upon the bed one of the two masks he had taken from the
chest, and smiled with derision as he saw the gesture of involuntary
fear which the slight shock of the black velvet wrung from his wife.
"You will give me a puny child!" he cried. "Wear that mask on your
face when I return. I'll have no barber-surgeon boast that he has seen
the Comtesse d'Herouville."
"A man!--why choose a man for the purpose?" she said in a feeble
voice.
"Ho! ho! my lady, am I not master here?" replied the count.
"What matters one horror the more!" murmured the countess; but her
master had disappeared, and the exclamation did her no injury.
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