The lady turned pale; her furtive glance left for a moment the vellum
page of the prayer-book and turned to the old man whom the young man
had designated. What terrible complicity was in that glance? When the
young woman had cautiously examined the old seigneur, she drew a long
breath and raised her forehead, adorned with a precious jewel, toward
a picture of the Virgin; that simple movement, that attitude, the
moistened glance, revealed her life with imprudent naivete; had she
been wicked, she would certainly have dissimulated. The personage who
thus alarmed the lovers was a little old man, hunchbacked, nearly
bald, savage in expression, and wearing a long and discolored white
beard cut in a fan-tail. The cross of Saint-Michel glittered on his
breast; his coarse, strong hands, covered with gray hairs, which had
been clasped, had now dropped slightly apart in the slumber to which
he had imprudently yielded. The right hand seemed about to fall upon
his dagger, the hilt of which was in the form of an iron shell. By the
manner in which he had placed the weapon, this hilt was directly under
his hand; if, unfortunately, the hand touched the iron, he would wake,
no doubt, instantly, and glance at his wife.
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