Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 3.djvu/195

169 THE ETRUSCAN VASE 169

"How very extraordinary!" said Roquan- tin. " But Themines, what did he do? "

"Oh, what is usual on these occasions: he threw his pistol on the ground remorsefully, with such force that he broke the hammer. It was an English pistol of Manton's. I don't believe there is a gunmaker in Paris who coiild make such another."

• • • • •

The Countess shut herself up in her country house for three whole years without seeing any- one; winter and summer, there she lived, hardly going out of her room. She was waited upon by a mulatto woman who knew of the attach- ment between Saint- Clair and herself. She scarcely spoke a word to her day after day. At the end of three years her cousin Julie returned from a long voyage. She forced her way into the house and found poor Mathilde thin and pale, the very ghost of the beautiful and fascinating woman she had left behind. By degrees she persuaded her to come out of her solitude, and took her to Hyeres. The Countess languished there for three or four months, and then died of consumption brought on by her grief — so said Dr. M, who attended her.

1830.