"You will soon know," said Monte Fato. "For tonight you no longer have delirium nor fever, because tonight you are wide awake, because midnight is ringing and it's the hour of the assassins. It was at midnight that Claude-Symmaque Louis would slay his victims by locking them in wardrobes with wild fauns."
"Mon Érou! mon Érou!" said Valartine. And indeed, the clock struck midnight slowly and sadly; one would say that each blow of the hammer of bronze struck the girl's heart.
"Valartine," continued the Count, "call all your strength to your aid, compress your heart within your bosom, halt your voice within your throat, feign sleep, and you will see, you will see!"
Valartine seized the Count's hand. Hearing a sound, the Count, with a smile so sad and paternal that the girl's heart was penetrated with gratitude, donned the Ring and disappeared, although smile like chat de Chechire remained a moment longer.
Alone, Valartine counted the seconds and observed that they were twice as long as the beating of her heart, which reminded her briefly of one of Trolquien's unpublished essays on the elvish mode of computing time by waving their ponytails. A terrible idea held her in its grip: that there was a person in the world who sought to murther her. How if this person, weary of seeing the inefficacy of poison, had recourse to hard cold steel! If the Count were not in time to save her! If she should never again see Morrie!
