So saying, she took up the dog, much astonished at his unresisting torpor; but what was her fright, when, having placed him upon her lap, she saw that he was quite motionless.
"An apoplexy!" cried she."The dear creature ate too much--I was always afraid of it."
Turning round hastily, she exclaimed: "Stop, coachman! stop!" without reflecting that the coachman could not hear her.Then raising the cur's head, still thinking that he was only in a fit, she perceived with horror the bloody holes imprinted by five or six sharp fangs, which left no doubt of the cause of his deplorable end.
Her first impulse was one of grief and despair."Dead!" she exclaimed;
"dead! and already cold! Oh, goodness!--And this woman burst into tears.
The tears of the wicked are ominous.For a bad man to weep, he must have suffered much; and, with him, the reaction of suffering, instead of softening the soul, inflames it to a dangerous anger.
Thus, after yielding to that first painful emotion, the mistress of My Lord felt herself transported with rage and hate--yes, hate--violent hate for the young girls, who had been the involuntary cause of the dog's death.Her countenance so plainly betrayed her resentment, that Blanche and Rose were frightened at the expression of her face, which had now grown purple with fury, as with agitated voice and wrathful glance she exclaimed: "It was your dog that killed him!"
"Oh, madame!" said Rose; "we had nothing to do with it."
"It was your dog that bit Spoil-sport first," added Blanche, in a plaintive voice.
The look of terror impressed on the features of the orphans recalled Mrs.
Grivois to herself.She saw the fatal consequences that might arise from yielding imprudently to her anger.For the very sake of vengeance, she had to restrain herself, in order not to awaken suspicion in the minds of Marshal Simon's daughters.But not to appear to recover too soon from her first impression, she continued for some minutes to cast irritated glances at the young girls; then, little by little, her anger seemed to give way to violent grief; she covered her face with her hands, heaved a long sigh, and appeared to weep bitterly.