Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/158

136 one. . .. They came on rapidly and touched the little slipper. There was no longer any doubt! It was a liquid, and that liquid, the colour of which could now be distinctly seen by the candlelight, was blood! While Léon paralysed with horror, watched these frightful streams, the young woman slept on peacefully, her regular breathing warming her lover's neck and shoulder.

The care which Léon had taken in ordering the dinner on their arrival at the inn of N——— adequately proved that he had a pretty level head, a high degree of intelligence and that he could look ahead. He did not in this emergency belie the character we have already indicated. He did not stir, and the whole strength of his mind was strained to keep this resolve in the presence of the frightful disaster which threatened him.

I can imagine that most of my readers, and, above all, my lady readers, filled with heroic sentiments, will blame the conduct of Leon on this occasion for remaining motionless. They will tell me he ought to have rushed to the Englishman's room and arrested the murderer, or, at least, to have pulled his bell and rung up the