In that posture he slept after a time, watched over by Bigot with looks of rage and pity.  And on the room fell a long silence.  The sun had lacked three hours of setting when he fell asleep.  When he re-opened his eyes, and, after lying for a few minutes between sleep and waking, became conscious of his position, of the day, of the things which had happened, and his helplessness—­an awakening which wrung from him an involuntary groan—­the light in the room was still strong, and even bright.  He fancied for a moment that he had merely dozed off and awaked again; and he continued to lie with his face to the wall, courting a return of slumber.

But sleep did not come, and little by little, as he lay listening and thinking and growing more restless, he got the fancy that he was alone.  The light fell brightly on the wall to which his face was turned; how could that be if Bigot’s broad shoulders still blocked the loophole?  Presently, to assure himself, he called the man by name.

He got no answer.

“Badelon!” he muttered.  “Badelon!”

Had he gone, too, the old and faithful?  It seemed so, for again no answer came.

He had been accustomed all his life to instant service; to see the act follow the word ere the word ceased to sound.  And nothing which had gone before, nothing which he had suffered since his defeat at Angers, had brought him to feel his impotence and his position—­and that the end of his power was indeed come—­as sharply as this.  The blood rushed to his head; almost the tears to eyes which had not shed them since boyhood, and would not shed them now, weak as he was!  He rose on his elbow and looked with a full heart; it was as he had fancied.  Badelon’s stool was empty; the embrasure—­that was empty too.  Through its narrow outlet he had a tiny view of the shore and the low rocky hill, of which the summit shone warm in the last rays of the setting sun.

The setting sun!  Ay, for the lower part of the hill was growing cold; the shore at its foot was grey.  Then he had slept long, and the time was come.  He drew a deep breath and listened.  But on all within and without lay silence, a silence marked, rather than broken, by the dull fall of a wave on the causeway.  The day had been calm, but with the sunset a light breeze was rising.

He set his teeth hard, and continued to listen.  An hour before sunset was the time they had named for the exchange.  What did it mean?  In five minutes the sun would be below the horizon; already the zone of warmth on the hillside was moving and retreating upwards.  And Bigot and old Badelon?  Why had they left him while he slept?  An hour before sunset!  Why, the room was growing grey, grey and dark in the corners, and—­what was that?

He started, so violently that he jarred his leg, and the pain wrung a groan from him.  At the foot of the bed, overlooked until then, a woman lay prone on the floor, her face resting on her outstretched arms.  She lay without motion, her head and her clasped hands towards the loophole, her thick, clubbed hair hiding her neck.  A woman!  Count Hannibal stared, and, fancying he dreamed, closed his eyes, then looked again.  It was no phantasm.  It was the Countess; it was his wife!