 portion three of the gray woman this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jane Greensmith the gray woman by Elizabeth Clighorn Gaskell portion three far on in the night there were voices outside reached us in our hiding place an angry knocking at the door and we saw through the chinks the old woman rouse herself up to go and open it for her master who came in evidently half drunk to my sick horror he was followed by Lafiev apparently a sober and wily as ever they were talking together as they came in disputing about something but the Miller stopped the conversation to swear at the old woman for having fallen asleep and with tipsy anger and even with blows drove the poor old creature out of the kitchen to bed then he and Lafievor went on talking about the Siodipus sees disappearance it seemed that the fever had been out all day along with other of my husband's been ostensibly assisting in the search in all probability trying to blind the Siodipus sees followers by putting them on a wrong scent and also I fancied from one or two of the fears sly questions combining the hidden purpose of discovering us although the Miller was tenant and vassal to the Siodipus see he seemed to me to be much more in league with the people of Montsour de la Torrelle he was evidently aware in part of the life which Lafiev and the others led although again I do not suppose he knew or imagined one half of their crimes and also I think he was seriously interested in discovering the fate of his master little suspecting Lafiev of murder or violence he kept talking himself and letting out all sorts of thoughts and opinions watched by the keen eyes of the fear of gleaming out below his shaggy eyebrows it was evidently not the cue of the latter to let out that his master's wife had escaped from that violent terrible den but though he never breathed a word relating to us not the less was I certain he was thirsting for our blood and lying and wait for us at every turn of events presently he got up and took his leave and the Miller bolted him out and stumbled off to bed then we fell asleep and slept sound and long the next morning when I awoke I saw a month half raised resting on one hand and eagerly gazing with straining eyes into the kitchen below I looked to and both heard and saw the Miller and two of his men eagerly and loudly talking about the old woman who had not appeared as usual to make the fire in the stove and prepare her master's breakfast and who now late on in the morning had been found dead in her bed whether from the effect of her master's blows the night before or from natural causes who can tell the Miller's conscience uprated him a little I should say for he was eagerly declaring his value for his housekeeper and repeating how often she had spoken of the happy life she led with him the men might have their doubts they did not wish to offend the Miller and all agreed that the necessary steps should be taken for a speedy funeral and so they went out leaving us in our loft but so much alone that for the first time almost we ventured to speak freely though still in hushed voice pausing to listen continually a month took a more cheerful view of the whole occurrence than I did she said that had the old woman lived we should have had to depart that morning and that this quiet departure would have been the best thing we could have had to hope for as in all probability the housekeeper would have told her master of us and of our resting place and this fact would sooner or later have been brought to the knowledge of those from whom we most desired to keep it concealed but that now we had time to rest and a shelter to rest in during the first hot pursuit which we knew to a fatal certainty was being carried on the remnants of our food and the stored up fruit would supply us with provision the only thing to be feared was that something might be required from the loft and the Miller or someone else mount up in search of it but even then with a little arrangement of boxes and chests one part might be so kept in shadow that we might yet escape observation all this comforted me a little but I asked how were we ever to escape the ladder was taken away which was our only means of descent but the mod replied that she could make a sufficient ladder of the rope lying coiled among other things to drop us down the 10 feet or so with the advantage of its being portable so that we might carry it away and thus avoid all betrayal of the fact that anyone had ever been hidden in the loft during the two days that intervened before we did escape a month made good use of her time she looked into every box and chest during the man's absence at his mill and finding in one box an old suit of man's clothes which had probably belonged to the Miller's absent son she put them on to see if they would fit her and when she found that they did she cut her own hair to the shortness of a man's made me clip her black eyebrows as close as though they had been shaved and by cutting up old corks into pieces such as would go into her cheeks she altered both the shape of her face and her voice to a degree which I should not have believed possible all this time I lay like one stunned my body resting and renewing its strength but I myself in an almost idiotic state else surely I could not have taken the stupid interest which I remember I did in all amounts energetic preparations for disguise I absolutely recollect once the feeling of a smile coming over my stiff face as some new exercise of her cleverness proved a success but towards the second day she required me to to exert myself and then all my heavy despair returned I let her dye my fair hair and complexion with the decaying shells of the stored up walnuts I let her blacken my teeth and even voluntarily broke a front tooth the better to affect my disguise but through it all I had no hope of evading my terrible husband the third night the funeral was over the drinking ended the guests gone the miller put to bed by his men being too drunk to help himself they stopped a little while in the kitchen talking and laughing about the new housekeeper likely to come and they too went off shutting but not locking the door everything favored us a month had tried her ladder on one of the two previous nights and could by dexterous throw from beneath unfastened from the hook to which it was fixed when it had served its office she made up a bundle of worthless old clothes in order that we might the better preserve our characters of a traveling peddler and his wife she stuffed a hump on her back she thickened my figure she left her own clothes deep down beneath the heap of others in the chest from which she had taken the man's dress which she wore and with a few francs in her pocket the sole money we had either of us about us when we escaped we let ourselves down the ladder unhooked it and passed into the cold darkness of night again we had discussed the route which it would be well for us to take while we lay perdu in our loft a month had told me then that her reason for inquiry when we first left Le Roche by which way I had first been brought to was to avoid the pursuit which she was sure would first be made in the direction of Germany but that now she thought we might return to that district of country where my German fashion of speaking French would excite least observation I thought that Amant herself had something peculiar in her accent which I had heard Monsieur de la Torrelle sneer at as Norman patois but I said not a word beyond agreeing to her proposal that we should bend our steps towards Germany once there we should I thought be safe alas I forgot the unruly time that was over spreading all Europe overturning all law and all the protection which law gives how we wandered not daring to ask our way how we lived how we struggled through many a danger and still more terrors of danger I shall not tell you now I will only relate two of our adventures before we reached Frankfurt the first although fatal to an innocent lady was yet I believe the cause of my safety the second I shall tell you that you may understand why I did not return to my former home as I had hoped to do when we lay in the millers loft and I first became capable of groping after an idea of what my future life might be I cannot tell you how much in these doubtings and wanderings I became attached to Amant I have sometimes feared sense lest I cared for her only because she was so necessary to my own safety but no it was not so or not so only or principally she said once that she was flying for her own life as well as for mine but we dared not speak much on our danger or on the horrors that had gone before we planned a little what was to be our future course but even for that we did not look forward long how could we when every day we scarcely knew if we should see the sun go down for Amant new or conjectured far more than I did of the atrocity of the gang to which Montseudelatorel belonged and every now and then just as we seem to be sinking into the calm of security we fell upon traces of a pursuit after us in all directions once I remember we must have been nearly three weeks we're really walking through unfrequented ways day after day not daring to make inquiry as to our whereabouts nor yet to seem purposeless in our wanderings we came to a kind of lonely roadside ferriers and blacksmiths I was so tired that Amant declared that come what might we would stay there all night and accordingly she entered the house and boldly announced herself as a traveling tailor ready to do any odd jobs of work that might be required for a night's lodging and food for herself and wife she had adopted this plan once or twice before and with good success for her father had been a tailor in Rouen and as a girl she had often helped him with his work and knew the tailor slang and habits down to the particular whistle and cry which in France tells so much to those of a trade at this blacksmiths as at most other solitary houses far away from a town there was not only a store of men's clothes laid by as wanting mending when the house wife could afford time but there was a natural craving afternoons from a distance such news as a wandering tailor is bound to furnish the early November afternoon was closing into evening as we sat down she cross-legged on the great table in the blacksmith's kitchen drawing close to the window I close behind her sewing at another part of the same garment and from time to time well scolded by my seeming husband all at once she turned round to speak to me it was only one word courage I had seen nothing I sat out of the light but I turned sick for an instant and then I braced myself up into a strange strength of endurance to go through I knew not what the blacksmith's forge was in a shed beside the house in fronting the road I heard the hammer stop plying their continual rhythmical beat she had seen why they ceased a rider had come up to the forge and dismounted leading his horse in to be reshawed the broad red light of the forge fire had revealed the face of the rider to amont and she apprehended the consequence that really ensued the rider after some words with the blacksmith was ushered in by him into the house place where we sat here good wife a cup of wine and some galette for this gentleman anything anything madam that I can eat and drink in my hand while my horse is being reshot I am in haste and must get on to foreback tonight the blacksmith's wife lighted her lamp amont had asked her for it five minutes before how thankful we were that she had not more speedily complied with our request as it was we sat in dusk shadow pretending to stitch away but scarcely able to see the lamp was placed on the stove near which my husband for it was he stood and armed himself by and by he turned round and looked all over the room taking us in with the same degree of interest as the inanimate furniture amont cross legged fronting him stooped over her work whistling softly all the while he turned again to the stove impatiently rubbing his hands he had finished his wine and galette and wanted to be off I am in haste my good woman ask thy husband to get on more quickly I will pay him double if he makes haste the woman went out to do his bidding and he once more turned round to face us amont went on to the second part of the tune he took it up whistled a second for an instant or so and then the blacksmith's wife re-entering he moved towards her as if to receive her answer the more speedily one moment monsieur only one moment there was a nail out of the off foreshoe which my husband is replacing it would delay monsieur again if that shoe also came off madame is right said he but my haste is urgent if madame knew my reasons she would pardon my impatience once a happy husband now a deserted and betrayed man I pursue a wife on whom I lavished all my love but who has abused my confidence and fled from my house doubtless to some paramour carrying off with her all the jewels and money on which she could lay her hands it is possible madame may have heard or seen something of her she was accompanied in her flight by a base profligate woman from Paris whom I unhappy man had myself engaged from my wife's waiting made little dreaming what corruption I was bringing into my house is it possible said the good woman throwing up her hands amont went on whistling a little lower out of respect to the conversation however I am tracing the wicked fugitives I am on their track and the handsome effeminate face looked as ferocious as any demons they will not escape me but every minute is a minute of misery to me till I meet my wife madame has sympathy has she not he drew his face into a hard unnatural smile and then both went out to the forage as if once more to hasten the black smith over his work amont stopped her whistling for one instant go on as you are without change of an eyelid leave it and a few minutes he will be gone and it will be over it was a necessary caution for I was on the point of giving way and throwing myself weakly upon her neck we went on she whistling and stitching I making semblance to so and it was well we did so for almost directly he came back for his whip which he had laid down and forgotten and again I felt one of those sharp quick scanning glances sent all around the room and taking in all then we heard him right away and then it had been long too dark to see well I dropped my work and gave way to my trembling and shuddering the black smith's wife returned she was a good creature amont told her I was cold and weary and she insisted on my stopping my work and going to sit near the stove hastening at the same time her preparations for supper which in honor of us and of Montsue's liberal payment was to be a little less frugal than ordinary it was well for me that she made me taste a little of the cider soup she was preparing or I could not have held up in spite of Amont's warning look and the remembrance of her frequent exhortations to act resolutely up to the characters we had assumed whatever befell to cover my agitation Amont stopped her whistling and began to talk and by the time the black smith came in she and the good woman of the house were in full flow he began at once upon the handsome gentleman who had paid him so well all his sympathy was with him and both he and his wife only wished he might overtake his wicked wife and punish her as she deserved and then the conversation took a turn not uncommon to those whose lives are quiet monotonous everyone seemed to vie with each other and telling about some horror and the savage and mysterious band of robbers called the chauffeur who infested all the roads leading to the Rhine with shindar hans at their head furnished many a tale which made the very marrow of my bones run cold and quenched even Amont's power of talking her eyes grew large and wild her cheeks blanched and for once she sought by her looks help from me the new call upon me roused me I rose and said with their permission my husband and I would seek our bed for that we had traveled far and were early risers I added that we would get up the times and finish our piece of work the black smith said we should be early birds if we rose before him and the good wife seconded my proposal with kindly bustle one other such story as those they had been relating and I do believe Amont would have fainted as it was a night's rest set her up we rose and finished our work the times and shared the plentiful breakfast of the family then we had to set forth again only knowing that to Forbach we must not go yet believing as was indeed the case that Forbach lay between us and that Germany to which we were directing our course two days more we wandered on making a round I suspect and returning upon the road to Forbach a league or two nearer to that town than the black smith's house but as we never made inquiries I hardly knew where we were when we came one night to a small town with a good large rambling in the very center of the principal street we had begun to feel as if there were more safety in towns than in the loneliness of the country as we had parted with a rig of mine not many days before to a traveling jeweler who was too glad to purchase it far below its real value to make many inquiries as to how it came into the possession of a poor working tailor such as a month seemed to be we resolved to stay at this in all night and gather such particulars as an information as we could by which to direct our onward course we took our supper in the darkest corner of the salamange having previously bargained for a small bedroom across the court and over the stables we needed food sorely but we hurried on our meal from dread of anyone entering that public room who might recognize us just in the middle of our meal the public diligence drove lumbering up under the port cliche and disgorged its passengers most of them turned into the room where we sat cowering and fearful for the door was opposite to the porter's lodge and both opened on to the wide covered entrance from the street among the passengers came in a young fair haired lady attended by an elderly french maid the poor young creature tossed her head and shrank away from the common room full of evil smells and promiscuous company and demanded in German French to be taken to some private apartment we heard that she and her maid had come in the coupé and probably from pride poor young lady she had avoided all association with her fellow passengers thereby exciting their dislike and ridicule all these little pieces of hearsay had a significance to us afterwards though at the time the only remark that made that bore upon the future was Amant's whisper to me that the young lady's hair was exactly the color of mine which she had cut off and burnt in the stove in the miller's kitchen in one of her descents from our hiding place in the loft as soon as we could we struck round in the shadow leaving the boisterous and merry fellow passengers to their supper we crossed the court bore a lantern from the ostler and scrambled up the rude step to our chamber above the stable there was no door into it the entrance was the hole into which the ladder fitted the window looked into the court we were tired and soon fell asleep I was wakened by a noise in the stable below one instant of listening and I wakened Amant placing my hand on her mouth to prevent any exclamation in her half roused state we heard my husband speaking about his horse to the ostler it was his voice I am sure of it Amant said so too we durst not move to rise and satisfy ourselves for five minutes or so he went on giving directions then he left the stable and softly stealing to our window we saw him cross the court and re-enter the inn we consulted as to what we should do we feared to excite remarker suspicion by descending and leaving our chamber or else immediate escape was our strongest idea then the ostler left the stable locking the door on the outside we must try and drop through the window if indeed it is well to go at all said Amant with reflection came wisdom we should excite suspicion by leaving without paying our bill we were on foot it might easily be pursued so we sat on our bed's edge talking and shivering while from across the court the laughter rang merrily and the company slowly dispersed one by one their lights flitting past the windows as they went upstairs and settled each one to his rest we crept into our bed holding each other tight and listening to every sound as if we thought we were tracked and might meet our death at any moment in the dead of night just as the profound stillness preceding the turn into another day we heard a soft cautious step crossing the yard the key into the stable was turned someone came into the stable we felt rather than heard him there a horse started a little and made a restless movement with his feet then we need recognition he who had entered made two or three low sounds to the animal and then led him into the court Amant sprang to the window with the noiseless activity of a cat she looked out but dared not speak a word we heard the great door into the street open a pause for mounting and the horse's footsteps were lost in distance then Amant came back to me it was he he is gone said she and once more we lay down trembling and shaking this time we fell sound asleep we slept long and late we were awakened by many hurrying feet and many confused voices all the world seemed awake and a stirrer we rose and dressed ourselves and coming down we looked around among the crowd collected in the courtyard in order to assure ourselves he was not there before we left the shelter of the stable the instant we were seen two or three people rushed to us have you heard do you know that poor young lady oh come and see and so we were hurried almost in spite of ourselves across the court and up the great open stairs of the main building of the inn into a bedchamber we lay the beautiful young german lady so full of graceful pride the night before now white and still in death by hearst of the french maid crying and gesticulating oh madame if you had but suffered me to stay with you oh the baron what will he say and so she went on her state had but just been discovered it had been supposed that she was fatigued and was sleeping late until a few minutes before the surgeon of the town had been sent for and the landlord of the inn was trying vainly to enforce order until he came and from time to time drinking little cups of brandy and offering them to the guests who were all assembled there pretty much as the servants were doing in the courtyard at last the surgeon came all fell back and hung on the words that were to fall from his lips see said the landlord this lady came last night by the diligence with her maid doubtless a great lady for she must have a private sitting room she was madame the baroness de roder said the french maid and was difficult to please in the matter of supper and a sleeping room she went to bed well so fatigued her maid left her i begged to be allowed to sleep in her room as we were in a strange inn of the character of which we knew nothing but she would not let me my mistress was such a great lady and slept with my servants continued the landlord this morning we thought madame was still slumbering but when eight nine ten and near 11 o'clock came i bade her maid use my pasky and enter her room the door was not locked only closed and here she was found dead is she not monsieur with her face down on her pillow and her beautiful hair all scattered wild she would never let me tie it up saying it made her headache such hair said the waiting maid lifting up a long golden dress and letting it fall again i remembered amon's words the night before and crept close up to her meanwhile the doctor was examining the body underneath the bedclothes which the landlord until now had not allowed to be disarranged the surgeon drew out his hand all bathed and stained with blood and holding up a short sharp knife with a piece of paper fasten around it here has been foul play he said the deceased lady has been murdered this dagger was aimed straight at her heart then putting on his spectacles he read the writing on the bloody paper dimmed and horribly obscured as it was numero one and see les chauffeurs of orange let us go said i to amand oh let us leave this horrible place wait a little said she only a few minutes more it will be better immediately the voices of all proclaimed their suspicions of the cavalier who had arrived last the night before he had they said made so many inquiries about the young lady whose supercilious conduct all in the salamon g had been discussing on his entrance they were talking about her as we left the room he must have come in directly afterwards and not until he had learned all about her had he spoken of the business which necessitated his departure at dawn of day and made his arrangements with both landlord and osler for the possession of the keys of the stable and poor crochet in short there was no doubt as to the murderer even before the arrival of the legal functionary who had been sent for by the surgeon but the word on the paper chilled everyone with terror la chauffeur who were they no one knew some of the gang might even then be in the room overhearing and noting down fresh objects for vengeance in germany i had heard little of this terrible gang and i had paid no greater heed to the stories related once or twice about them in carol's rue than one does to tales about ogres but here in their very haunts i learned the full amount of the terror they inspired no one would be legally responsible for any evidence for criminating the murderer the public prosecutor shrank from the duties of his office what do i say neither amont nor i knowing far more of the actual guilt of the man who had killed that poor sleeping young lady durst breathe a word we appear to be wholly ignorant of everything we who might have told so much but how could we we were broken down with terrific anxiety and fatigue with the knowledge that we above all were doomed victims and that the blood heavily dripping from the bed clothes onto the floor was dripping thus out of the poor dead body because when living she had been mistaken for me at length amont went up to the landlord and asked permission to leave his inn doing all openly and humbly so as to excite neither ill will nor suspicion indeed suspicion was otherwise directed and he willingly gave us leave to depart a few days afterwards we were across the Rhine in germany making our way towards frankfort but still keeping our disguises and amont still working at her trade on the way we met a young man a wandering journeyman from heidelberg i knew him although i did not choose that he should know me i asked him as carelessly as i could how the old miller was now he told me he was dead this realization of the worst apprehensions caused by his long silence shocked me inexpressibly it seemed as though every prop gave way from under me i had been talking to amont only that very day of the safety and comfort of the home that awaited her in my father's house of the gratitude which the old man would feel towards her and how there in that peaceful dwelling far away from the terrible land of france she should find ease and security for all the rest of her life all this i thought i had to promise and even yet more had i looked for for myself i looked to the unburdening of my heart and conscience by telling all i knew to my best and wisest friend i looked to his love as a sure guidance as well as comforting stay and behold he was gone away from me forever i left the room hastily on hearing of the sad news from the heidelberger presently amont followed poor madame said she consoling me to the best of her ability and then she told me by degrees what more she had learned respecting my home about which she knew almost as much as i did from my frequent talks on the subject both at la roche and on the dreary doleful road we had come along she continued the conversation after i left by asking about my brother and his wife of course they lived on at the mill but the man said with what truth i know not but i believed it firmly at the time that bebetta had completely got the upper hand of my brother who only saw through her eyes and heard with her ears that there had been much heidelberg gossip of late days about her sudden intimacy with a grand french gentleman who had appeared at the mill a relation by marriage married in fact to the miller's sister who by all accounts had behaved abominably and ungrateful but that was no reason for bebetta's extreme and sudden intimacy with him going about everywhere with the french gentleman and since he left as the heidelberger said he knew for a fact corresponding with him constantly yet her husband saw no harm at all seemingly though to be sure he was so out of spirits what with his father's death and the news of his sister's infamy that he hardly knew how to hold up his head now said amant all this proves that montio di lateral has suspected that you would go back to the nest in which you were reared and that he has been there and found that you have not yet returned but probably he still imagines that you will do so and has accordingly engaged your sister-in-law as a kind of informant badam has said that her sister-in-law bore her no extreme goodwill and the defamatory story he has got the start of us in spreading will not tend to increase the favor in which your sister-in-law holds you no doubt the assassin was retracing his steps when we met him near forebock and having heard of the poor german lady with her french maid and her pretty blonde complexion he followed her if madame will still be guided by me and my child i beg of you still to trust me said amant breaking out of her respectful formality into the net way of talking more natural to those who had shared an escape from common dangers more natural to where the speaker was conscious of a power of protection which the other did not possess we will go on to frankfort and lose ourselves for a time at least in the numbers of people who throng a great town and you have told me that frankfort is a great town we will still be husband and wife we will take a small lodging and you shall housekeep and live indoors i as the rougher and the more alert will continue my father's trade and seek work at the taylor shops i could think of no better plan so we followed this out in a back street at frankfort we found two furnished rooms to let on a sixth story the one we entered had no light from day a dingy lamp swung perpetually from the ceiling and from that or from the open door leading into the bedroom beyond came our only light the bedroom was more cheerful but very small such as it was it almost exceeded our possible means the money from the sale of my ring was almost exhausted an amant was a stranger in the place speaking only french moreover and the good germans were hating the french people right heartily however we succeeded better than our hopes and even laid by a little against the time of my confinement i never stirred abroad and saw no one an amant's want of knowledge of german kept her in a state of comparative isolation at length my child was born my poor worse than fatherless child it was a girl as i had prayed for i had feared lester boy might have something of the tiger nature of its father but a girl seemed all my own and yet not all my own for the faithful amant's delight and glory in the babe almost exceeded mine an outward show it certainly did we had not been able to afford any attendance beyond what an a brian sage fem could give and she came frequently bringing in with her a little store of gossip and wonderful tales culled out of her own experience every time one day she began to tell me about a great lady in whose service her daughter had lived as a scullion or some such thing such a beautiful lady with such a handsome husband but grief comes to the palace as well as to the garret and why or where for no one knew but somehow the baron durolder must have incurred the vengeance of the terrible chauffeurs for not many months ago as madame was going to see her relations in zalsas she was stabbed dead as she lay in bed at some hotel on the road had i not seen it in the gazette had i not heard why she had been told that as far off as leon there were placards offering a heavy reward on the part of the baron durolder for information respecting the murderer of his wife but no one could help him for all who could bear evidence were in such terror of the chauffeur there were hundreds of them she had been told rich and poor great gentlemen and peasants all lead together by most frightful oaths to hunt to the death anyone who bore witness against them so that even they who survived the tortures to which the chauffeur subjected many of the people whom they plundered dared not to recognize them again would not dare even did they see them at the bar of a court of justice for if one were condemned were there not hundreds sworn to avenge his death i told all this to amand and we began to fear that if monso de la torrelle or the fieve or any of the gang at le rocher had seen these placards they would know that the poor lady stabbed by the former was the baron ass durolder and that they would set forth again in search of me this fresh apprehension told them my health and impeded my recovery we had so little money we could not call in a physician at least not one in established practice but amand found out a young doctor for whom indeed she had sometimes worked an offering to pay him in kind she brought him to see me her sick wife he was very gentle and thoughtful though like ourselves very poor but he gave much time and consideration to the case saying once to amand that he saw my constitution had experienced some severe shock from which it was probable that my nerves would never entirely recover by and by i shall name this doctor and then you will know better than i can describe his character i grew strong in time stronger at least i was able to work a little at home and to send myself and my baby at the garret window in the roof it was all the air i dared to take i constantly wore the disguise i had first set out with as constantly had i renewed the disfiguring dye which changed my hair and complexion but the perpetual state of terror in which i had been during the whole month succeeding my escape from la rocher made me loathe the idea of ever again walking in the open daylight exposed to the site and recognition of every passerby in vain amand's reasoned in vain the doctor urged docile and every other thing in this i was obstinate i would not stir out one day amand returned from her work full of news some of it good some such as to cause this apprehension the good news was this the master for whom she worked as journeyman was going to send her with some others to a great house at the other side of frankfort where there were to be private theatricals and where many new dresses and much alteration of old ones would be required the taylor's employed were all to stay at this house until the day of representation was over as it was at some distance from the town and no one could tell when their work would be ended but the pay was to be proportionally good the other thing she had to say was this she had that day met the traveling jeweler to whom she and i had sold my ring it was a rather peculiar one given to be by my husband we had felt at the time that it might be the means of tracing us but we were penniless and starving and what else could we do she had seen that this frenchman had recognized her at the same instance that she did him and she thought at the same time that there was a gleam of more than common intelligence in his face as he did so this idea had been confirmed by his following her for some way on the other side of the street but she had evaded him with her better knowledge of the town and the increasing darkness of the night still it was well that she was going to such a distance from our dwelling on the next day and she had brought me in a stock of provisions begging me to keep within doors with a strange kind of fearful oblivion of the fact that i had never set foot beyond the threshold of the house since i had first entered it scarce ever ventured down the stairs but although my poor my dear very faithful amant was like one possessed that last night she spoke continually of the dead which is a bad sign for the living she kissed you yes it was you my daughter my darling whom i bore beneath my bosom away from the fearful castle of your father i call him so for the first time i must call him so once again before i have done amant kissed you sweet baby less little comfort her as if she could never leave off and then she went away alive two days three days passed away that third evening i was sitting within my bolted doors you asleep on your pillow by my side when a step came up the stair and i knew it must be for me for hours with the top most rooms someone knocked i held my very breath but someone spoke and i knew it was good dr voss then i crept to the door and answered are you alone asti yes said he in a still lower voice let me in i let him in and he was as alert as i in bolton and barring the door then he came and whispered to me his doleful tale he had come from the hospital in the opposite quarter of the town the hospital which he visited he should have been with me sooner but he had feared lest he should be watched he had come from amant's deathbed her fears of the jeweler were too well founded she had left the house where she was employed that morning to transact some errand connected with her work in the town she must have been followed and dogged on her way back through the solitary wood paths for some of the wood rangers belonging to the great house had found her there stabbed to death but not dead with a poignard again plunged through the fatal writing once more but this time with the word on underlined so as to show that the assassin was aware of his precious mistake numero one they had carried her to the house and given her restorative still she had recovered the feeble use of her speech but oh faithful dear friend and sister even then she remembered me and refused to tell what no one else among her fellow workmen knew where she lived or with whom life was ebbing away fast and they had no resource but to carry her to the nearest hospital where of course the fact of her sex was made known fortunately both for her and for me the doctor in attendance was the very doctor voss whom we already knew to him while awaiting her confessor she told enough to enable him to understand the position in which i was left before the priest had heard half her tale amant was dead doctor voss told me he had made all sorts of detour and waited thus late at night for fear of being watched and followed but i do not think he was at any rate as i afterwards learned from him the baron roder unhearing of the similitude of this murder with that of his wife in every particular made such a search after the after the assassins that although they were not discovered they were compelled to take flight for the time i can hardly tell you now by what arguments doctor voss at first merely my benefactor sparing me a portion of a small modicum at length persuaded me to become his wife his wife he called it i called it for we went through the religious ceremony too much slighted at the time and as we were both lutherans a monso di laterale had pretended to be of the reformed religion a divorce from the latter would have been easily procurable by german law both ecclesiastical and legal could we have summoned so fearful a man into any court the good doctor took me and my child by stealth to his modest dwelling and there i lived in the same deep refinement never seeing the full light of day although when the die had once passed away from my face my husband did not wish me to renew it there was no need my yellow hair was gray my complexion was ashen colored no creature could have recognized the fresh colored bright-haired young woman of 18 months before the few people whom i saw knew me only as madame voss a widow much older than himself whom dr. voss had secretly married they called me the gray woman he made me give you his surname till now you have known no other father while he lived you needed no father's love once only only once more did the old terror come upon me for some reason which i forget i broke through my usual custom and went to the window of my room for some purpose either to shut or to open it looking out into the street for an instance i was fascinated by the sight of monsieurs de la torel gay young elegant as ever walking along on the opposite side of the street the noise i had made with the window caused him to look up he saw me an old gray woman and he did not recognize me yet it was not three years since we had parted and his eyes were keen and dreadful like those of the lynx i told ms. voss on his return home and he tried to cheer me but the shock i've seen once you did a thorough have been too terrible for me i was ill for long months afterwards once again i saw him dead he and the fief were at last caught hunted down by the baron de rotor and some of their crimes dr. voss had heard of their arrest their condemnation their death but he never said a word to me until one day he made me show him that i loved him by my obedience and my trust he took me a long carriage journey where to i know not for we never spoke of that day again i was led through a prison into a closed courtyard where decently draped in the last robes of death concealing the marks of decapitation les monsieurs de la torel and two or three others whom i had known at le roche after that conviction dr. voss tried to persuade me to return to a more natural mode of life and to go out more but although i sometimes complied with his wish yet the old terror was ever strong upon me and he seeing what an effort it was gave up urging me at last you know all the rest how we both mourned bitterly the loss of that dear husband and father for such i will call him ever and as such you must consider him my child after this one revelation is over why has it been made you ask for this reason my child the lover whom you have only known as monsieurs la brune a french artist told me but yesterday his real name dropped because the bloodthirsty republicans might consider it as too aristocratic it is moris de possig end of portion three recording by jane greensmith of jngs.com end of the gray woman by elizabeth clighorn gaskell