DEDICATION To Madame la Baronne James Rothschild.
| PART I. | HOW THE MOTHER LIVED |
| CHAPTER I. | A BEDROOM OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY |
| CHAPTER II. | THE BONESETTER |
| CHAPTER III. | THE MOTHER’S LOVE |
| PART II. | HOW THE SON DIED |
| CHAPTER IV. | THE HEIR |
| CHAPTER V. | GABRIELLE |
| CHAPTER VI. | LOVE |
| CHAPTER VII. | THE CRUSHED PEARL |
On a winter’s night, about two in the morning, the Comtesse Jeanne d’Herouville felt such violent pains that in spite of her inexperience, she was conscious of an approaching confinement; and the instinct which makes us hope for ease in a change of posture induced her to sit up in her bed, either to study the nature of these new sufferings, or to reflect on her situation. She was a prey to cruel fears,—caused less by the dread of a first lying-in, which terrifies most women, than by certain dangers which awaited her child.
In order not to awaken her husband who was sleeping beside her, the poor woman moved with precautions which her intense terror made as minute as those of a prisoner endeavoring to escape. Though the pains became more and more severe, she ceased to feel them, so completely did she concentrate her own strength on the painful effort of resting her two moist hands on the pillow and so turning her suffering body from a posture in which she could find no ease. At the slightest rustling of the huge green silk coverlet, under which she had slept but little since her marriage, she stopped as though she had rung a bell. Forced to watch the count, she divided her attention between the folds of the rustling stuff and a large swarthy face, the moustache of which was brushing her shoulder. When some noisier breath than usual lef