Valartine, in recognising her stepmother, was seized of an acute shuddering. She seemed to see shining, in the hand that did not hold the phial, a kind of long sharpened, tasteless knife. Then Valartine called all the power of her will to her aid, and forced herself to close her eyes.
Her mission completed, the Society Lady retired, without that the least sound avert to Valartine that she had left, nor any other sign than the disappearance of that arm: the beautiful arm of a woman of twenty-five, which dispensed death.
The Count of Monte Fato reappeared and removed his Ring.
"You have seen? You have recognised? Do you yet doubt?" asked the Count.
"Hélas! Mon Érou!" murmured Valartine, almost alarmed. "But can I not leave the house, escape...?"
"Valartine, the hand that pursues you will attain you everywhere; by force of gold, one will seduce your domestics, and death will offer itself to you, disguised in every aspect, in the water you drink from the spring, in the fruit you pluck from the tree, in virus attached to thy letters, in critic that reporteth thy debut."
"But did not you tell me that bon papa had prepared me against poison?"
