The whole incident did not take ten seconds.
Yvonne, in her trepidation, ran to her bedroom, seized a wrap and went to the door. The door was locked; and there was no key in the lock.
She hurried back to the boudoir. The door of the boudoir also was locked.
Then, suddenly, the image of her husband appeared before her, that gloomy face which no smile ever lit up, those pitiless eyes in which, for years, she had felt so much hatred and malice.
“It’s he … it’s he!” she said to herself. “He has taken the child. … Oh, it’s horrible!”
She beat against the door with her fists, with her feet, then flew to the mantelpiece and pressed the bell fiercely.
The shrill sound rang through the house from top to bottom. The servants would be sure to come. Perhaps a crowd would gather in the street. And, impelled by a sort of despairing hope, she kept her finger on the button.
A key turned in the lock. … The door was flung wide open. The count appeared on the threshold of the boudoir. And the expression of his face was so terrible that Yvonne began to tremble.
He entered the room. Five or six steps separated him from her. With a supreme effort, she tried to stir, but all movement was impossible; and, when she attempted to speak, she could only flutter her lips and emit incoherent sounds. She felt herself lost. The thought of death unhinged her. Her knees gave way beneath her and she sank into a huddled heap, with a moan.
The count rushed at her and seized her by the throat:
“Hold your tongue … don’t call out!” he said, in a low voice. “That will be best for you! …”
Seeing that she was not attempting to defend herself, he loosened his hold of her and took from his pocket some strips of canvas ready rolled and of different lengths. In a few minutes, Yvonne was lying on a sofa, with her wrists and ankles bound and her arms fastened close to her body.
It was now dark in the boudoir. The count switched on the electric light and went to a little writing-desk where Yvonne was accustomed to keep her letters. Not succeeding in opening it, he picked the lock with a bent wire, emptied the drawers and collected all the contents into a bundle, which he carried off in a cardboard file:
“Waste of time, eh?” he grinned. “Nothing but bills and letters of no importance. … No proof against you. … Tah! I’ll keep my son for all that; and I swear before Heaven that I will not let him go!”
As he was leaving the room, he was joined, near the door, by his man Bernard. The two stopped and talked, in a low voice; but Yvonne heard these words spoken by the servant:
“I have had an answer from the working jeweller. He says he holds himself at my disposal.”
And the count replied:
“The thing is put off until twelve o’clock midday, tomorrow. My mother has just telephoned to say that she could not come before.”
Then Yvonne heard the key turn in the lock and the sound of steps going down to the ground-floor, where her husband’s study was.
She long lay inert, her brain reeling with vague, swift ideas that burnt her in passing, like flames. She remembered her husband’s infamous behaviour, his humiliating conduct to her, his threats, his plans for a divorce; and she gradually came to understand that she was the victim of a regular conspiracy, that the servants had been sent away until the following evening by their master’s orders, that the governess had carried off her son by the count’s instructions and with Bernard’s assistance, that her son would not come back and that she would never see him again.
“My son!” she cried. “My son! …”
Exasperated by her grief, she stiffened herself, with every nerve, with every muscle tense, to make a violent effort. And she was astonished to find that her right hand, which the count had fastened too hurriedly, still retained a certain freedom.
Then a mad hope invaded her; and, slowly, patiently, she began the work of self-deliverance.
It was long in the doing. She needed a deal of time to widen the knot sufficiently and a deal of time afterward, when the hand was released, to undo those other bonds which tied her arms to her body and those which fastened her ankles.
Still, the thought of her son sustained her; and the last shackle fell as the clock struck eight. She was free!
She was no sooner on her feet than she flew to the window and flung back the latch, with the intention of calling the first passerby. At that moment a policeman came walking along the pavement. She leant out. But the brisk evening air, striking her face, calmed her. She thought of the scandal, of the judicial investigation, of the cross-examination, of her son. O Heaven! What could she do to get him back? How could she escape? The count might appear at the least sound. And who knew but that, in a moment of fury … ?
She shivered from head to foot, seized with a sudden terror. The horror of death mingled, in her poor brain, with the thought of her son; and she stammered, with a choking throat:
“Help! … Help! …”
She stopped and said to herself, several times over, in a low voice, “Help! … Help! …” as though the word awakened an idea, a memory within her, and as though the hope of assistance no longer seemed to her impossible. For some minutes she remained absorbed in deep meditation, broken by fears and starts. Then, with an almost mechanical series of movements, she put out her arm to a little set of shelves hanging over the writing-desk, took
