As the last quarter after eleven sounded, followed immediately by the hour of midnight, a small door beside the bed noiselessly opened, and a female figure in white silently entered the room; but not so noiselessly was the entrance effected as to escape the ear of the vigilant Ali. He glanced hurriedly around; then, as if familiar with the apparition, and anticipating its approach, he rose, and, taking his rug to the further extremity of the chamber, again laid himself down, like a faithful dog, though not now to watch.
Meanwhile the lady, quietly approaching the bed, gazed long and mournfully at the slumberer's pale yet noble visage; then, kneeling, she buried her face in her hands amid the coverings.
She was, probably, forty; yet, in the full and faultless perfection of her form--in her graceful and yielding motions--in her statuesque bust, rounded cheek and night-black hair, she would, to the casual observer, have indicated hardly the half of that age. Her figure was tall and dignified, yet mobile as a willow; her eyes were dark and luminous, and, in their profound depths, slept a world of melancholy meaning. Her hair was simply parted on a broad forehead, and was gathered in heavy masses low on the neck. Her lips were full and red, and, when parted, exhibited teeth of dazzling whiteness, while her complexion, which was very dark, was yet clear and pure as the hue of the magnolia's petal. But that face was pale, very pale, almost as colorless as that of the quiet sleeper at its side, and upon it rested an expression of love unutterable, mingled with the sadness of death.
Such was the unknown nurse, the Countess de Morcerf, as she again was an inmate of that apartment of which she had once, under circumstances how different, been mistress; such was Mercédès, the Catalane of Marseilles, again at the side of the man whom all her life she had loved, with none to gainsay or forbid!
Upon that pale and motionless countenance she gazed long and deeply, and, oh! the world of memory that passed through her mind!--the world of thought and feeling that centred in that fixed gaze! At length, clasping her hands upon her forehead, her eyes streaming with tears, she bowed her face upon the bed, from which she had just raised it, and long seemed absorbed in prayer.
Roused from this position by some movement of the slumberer, she started up and watched him.
The shaded rays of the dim and distant lamp threw a faint glimmering of light upon the pale countenance, but the quick eye of love instantaneously detected a change. A slight flush was mounting the cheek, and gentle perspiration was distilling upon the brow, while a smile played on the mouth. Suddenly, as she gazed, those pallid lips moved. Astonished, she listened.