Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/65

 with snakes, stung by scorpions, and—what was worse—racked by the incessant torture of unavailing remorse.

No, she would live, go into a nunnery.

She in a convent? She who perhaps bore already a child in her bosom, could she pollute the house where saintly maidens dwelt? No, a house of lewdness was the house fit for her.

But perhaps, hers had been but a dream, a frightful nightmare, a fit of somnambulism. Several times she had walked in the night and done strange things in her sleep.

But what of her nightgown all dabbled with blood, all crumpled and stained by some viscid fluid, the smell of which was present to her nostrils?

Why was the window open, and whose were those foot prints from the casement to her bed? Yes, the dusty traces of a naked foot were visible upon the highly polished floor.

She had but time to close the shutters and wipe away the dust when approaching footsteps stopped and she heard a slight tap at her door.