Madame Lescande, who had listened, motionless, and pale as marble, remained in the same lifeless attitude, her eyes fixed, her hands clenched--yearning from the depths of her heart that death would summon her.

Suddenly a singular noise, seeming to come from the next room, struck her ear.

It was only a convulsive sob, or violent and smothered laughter.

The wildest and most terrible ideas crowded to the mind of the unhappy woman; the foremost of them, that her husband had secretly returned, that he knew all--that his brain had given way, and that the laughter was the gibbering of his madness.
Feeling her own brain begin to reel, she sprang from the sofa, and rushing to the door, threw it open.

The next apartment was the dining-room, dimly lighted by a hanging lamp.