She meant, no doubt, that Miette had plenty of time before her to suffer and weep.  Then, turning her eyes upon Silvere, who with a glance of ecstasy had followed the child as she ran off in the bright sunshine, she simply added:  “Take care, my boy; this sort of thing sometimes kills one.”

These were the only words she spoke with reference to the incident which had awakened all the sorrows that lay slumbering in the depths of her being.  Silence had become a real religion with her.  When Silvere came in, she double-locked the door, and threw the key down the well.  In this wise she felt certain that the door would no longer make her an accomplice.  She examined it for a moment, glad at seeing it reassume its usual gloomy, barrier-like aspect.  The tomb was closed once more; the white gap was for ever boarded up with that damp-stained mossy timber over which the snails had shed silvery tears.

In the evening, aunt Dide had another of those nervous attacks which came upon her at intervals.  At these times she would often talk aloud and ramble incoherently, as though she was suffering from nightmare.  That evening, while Silvere held her down on her bed, he heard her stammer in a panting voice such words as “custom-house officer,” “fire,” and “murder.”  And she struggled, and begged for mercy, and dreamed aloud of vengeance.  At last, as always happened when the attack was drawing to a close, she fell into a strange fright, her teeth chattering, while her limbs quivered with abject terror.  Finally, after raising herself into a sitting posture, she cast a haggard look of astonishment at one and another corner of the room, and then fell back upon the pillow, heaving deep sighs.  She was, doubtless, a prey to some hallucination.  However, she drew Silvere to her bosom, and seemed to some degree to recognise him, though ever and anon she confused him with someone else.

“There they are!” she stammered.  “Do you see?  They are going to take you, they will kill you again.  I don’t want them to—­Send them away, tell them I won’t; tell them they are hurting me, staring at me like that—­”

Then she turned to the wall, to avoid seeing the people of whom she was talking.  And after an interval of silence, she continued:  “You are near me, my child, aren’t you?  You must not leave me.  I thought I was going to die just now.  We did wrong to make an opening in the wall.  I have suffered ever since.  I was certain that door would bring us further misfortune—­Oh! the innocent darlings, what sorrow!  They will kill them as well, they will be shot down like dogs.”

Then she relapsed into catalepsy; she was no longer even aware of Silvere’s presence.  Suddenly, however, she sat up, and gazed at the foot of her bed, with a fearful expression of terror.

“Why didn’t you send them away?” she cried, hiding her white head against the young man’s breast.  “They are still there.  The one with the gun is making signs that he is going to fire.”