Such suspicion I did not, of course, presume to name, scarcely
presumed to think, it seemed so like an unnatural monstrosity of my
own mind. But when, one morning, the child died, holding in his
hands the _bonbons_ his mother had given him, and Madame C----, all
agitation and frenzy and weeping, still contrived to extract them from
the tightly closed, tiny fists, and threw them into the grate, I felt
a horrid thrill like the effect of the last scene in a tragedy. _I
knew that the bonbons were poisoned_.
So that is the reason I shuddered as I passed through the saloon.
Throwing open the window, a dim light flickered through, and a sickly
ray fell upon the fountain. It shivered upon the dripping marble
column in its centre, and struck with an icy hue the water in the
basin below. The fountain was not in my range of vision from the
window; but I often turned to look at it as I opened the shutters,
thinking it a pretty sight when the drops sparkled in the misty light
against the background of the otherwise darkened room. It pleased my
imagination to watch the effect produced by a little more or a little
less opening of the shutters,--a nonsensical morning play-spell, which
quite enlivened me for the sedate occupations of the day.
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