So the
handkerchief was removed, and while I was panting, a voice said:
'It shall not be put on again, if Madame will give her word not to
cry out.'
'It is of no use at present,' I gasped out, and they let me alone. I
thought I knew that threats and entreaties could avail me little in
the existing circumstances, and I thought it wiser to rally my forces
for the struggle that no doubt was impending; so I sat as still as I
could, and was rewarded by finding my hands unbound, when I tried to
raise one to my face, and again the voice said:
'Believe us, Madame, you are with friends who would not hurt you for
the universe.'
I made no answer. Perhaps it was in the same mood in which, when I
was a child at home and was in a bad temper, I might be whipped and
shut up in a dark room, but nothing would make me speak. Only now I
said my prayers, and I am sure I never did so in those old days. We
went on and on, and I think I must have dozed at last, for I actually
thought myself wearied out with kicking, scratching, and screaming on
the floor of the lumber-room at Walwyn, and that I heard the dear
grandmother's voice saying:
'Eh! quoi! she is asleep; the sullen had stopped, and with the words,
'Pardon me, Madame,' I was lifted out, and set upon my feet; but my
two hands were taken, and I was led along what seemed to be endless
passages, until at length my hands were released, and the same voice
said:
'Madame will be glad of a few moments to arrange her dress.
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