cried aloud, "I am dying!"

At that terrible cry of the injured wife and mother her maid ran in.
After she was laid upon her bed and recovered both sight and mind, the
first act of her intelligence was to send the maid to her friend,
Madame de Portenduere. Sabine felt that her ideas were whirling in her
brain like straws at the will of a waterspout. "I saw," she said
later, "myriads all at once."

She rang for the footman and in the transport of her fever she found
strength to write the following letter, for she was mastered by one
mad desire--to have certainty:--

To Madame la Baronne du Guenic:

Dear Mamma,--When you come to Paris, as you allow us to hope you
will, I shall thank you in person for the beautiful present by
which you and my aunt Zephirine and Calyste wish to reward me for
doing my duty. I was already well repaid by my own happiness in
doing it. I can never express the pleasure you have given me in
that beautiful dressing-table, but when you are with me I shall
try to do so. Believe me, when I array myself before that
treasure, I shall think, like the Roman matron, that my noblest
jewel is our little angel, etc.

She directed the letter to Guerande and gave it to the footman to
post.

When the Vicomtesse de Portenduere came, the shuddering chill of
reaction had succeeded in poor Sabine this first paroxysm of madness.