when I woke I was in a profuse perspiration.
The greyness of early morning stole in through
my little window. I saw the whitewashed walls
adorned with a few prints, devotional or
warlike, but nailed in the plaster, and frameless.
This was the only bit of feminine embellishment
—and it might as well have come from the
husband as from Prudence—which betrayed the
presence of a woman. There was no pincushion
on the chest of drawers, and no flower-pot outside
the window; everything was cold, bare, and
comfortless-looking. It was rather ungracious in
me to be thus criticising Prudence's domestic
arrangements, whilst I was lying in her bed; but
I owed her a grudge for the night she had given
me, and I went on commenting without scruple.
Ere long I paused. I stared, and could not
believe what I saw to be real; and yet, if seeing
be believing, I was not deceived. At the foot
of the bed, strung on a slender reed like
herrings, I saw a row of black vipers. The reed
itself was fastened to two nails in the wall.

I have a horror of serpents; the sight of them
alone is hateful to me. I sprung out of bed, I
bundled on a few clothes, I kicked the chairs away
from the door, and entered the kitchen in a
passion.

"What do you mean by poisoning me with
those abominable reptiles?" I asked of the man,
who was already up and busy. "How dare you
make me sleep in a room with a set of vipers?"

I so startled him that, in his confusion, the
poor fellow dropped my tin box, which he had
been examining.

"They are dead, sir," he said, apologetically.

This exasperated me.

"Of course they are dead. A pretty thing
if they were alive and crawling!"

"They would bite you if they were alive,
sir," he replied.

The fellow's incorrigible stupidity calmed me.
It was useless to argue, and I wanted to know
why those abominable creatures were there. I
put the question to him.

"We always keep them there, lest any one
should come and steal them," he replied; "they
are worth ten sous apiece now."

I began to understand the facts of the case.
These people killed vipers, and got the government
reward for doing so.

"You pursue a dangerous trade, my good
fellow," I said; "be careful."

"It is Prudence who does it; she has the
secret, only she will not tell it to me. I have
begged and prayed for it again and again, but
she will not give it to me. She says two cannot
have it, for if two had it, it would kill her. Now,
you know, that is hard upon me," he continued,
"for suppose she dies. I am left destitute."

"And have you no idea how she does it?" I
asked.

"I know she takes milk out with her, and I
have heard her whistle; and once I came home
unexpectedly, and I caught her making a sort of
tisane, and—monsieur may believe me—she was
boiling her pot on the fire yonder, and threw in
handfuls of that very herb monsieur has got
there."

He pointed to the contents of my tin box.
I took the withered herbs.

"That," I said, "is the——"

I had no time to end the sentence. A hand
snatched the weeds from mine, and Prudence
thrust her face between us.

"Monster! Devil!" she shrieked. "Do you
want to kill me?—to kill me?"

She was in a frightful rage, but her pale face
was not disturbed; it was the face I had seen
all night—cruel, relentless, abhorrent—to me,
at least—but not otherwise altered. It was her
husband whom she addressed, and he slunk
away like a detected hound. His wife's anger
was as brief as it was violent; she gave him a
look of contempt, then turned to me smiling.

"Has monsieur slept well, and will he have
any breakfast?" she asked, smoothly. "We shall
soon have beautiful milk."

Now, it was prejudice, of course, but I could
not make up my mind to drink milk in Prudence's
house; it would have tasted "viperish" to me,
though the cow that gave it had been the fair lo
herself. I declined Prudence's courtesy with
brief thanks, entered my room, and finished
dressing. Within five minutes I had paid my
bill, and was on my road to the inn in the next
village, with Prudence's husband as my guide.
I did not need his services, but I could see the
poor wretch wanted to get away from his wife,
whose eye, when it fell upon him, took a
particularly evil expression; moreover, I was not
sorry to have a chat with him. I had no need to
draw him out; he was fasting and lively now;
besides, he wanted to explain why Prudence had
got into such a passion, or rather why he had
submitted to her fury so patiently. "You see,
sir," he said, "she is a good girl, is Prudence
—a little quick at times, but a good girl; and
then she was a good match for me. The secret
has been in her family for more than a hundred
years; it has gone down from father to son,
or to daughter, as the case might be, and all
these girls have been sought after and have
made good matches, whereas I had not a
farthing."

"How came she to marry you?" I asked.

He looked at me and smiled.

"She could not help herself, sir; she was fond
of me, you see."

"Why will she not tell you the secret? You
could both go hunting and catching vipers."

Prudence's husband looked ill used.

"She will not," he said, sullenly. "She says
that if it were known to more than one person
at a time, the vipers would bite her and kill
her. Now, that is an idea, as I tell her."

Every one has an idea in France, so I was not
surprised at this remark of Prudence's husband,
but I was surprised by what he told me. Did
Prudence really believe that the revelation of
her secret would destroy her power?