The count let his head fall back on the pillow and remained in darkness.
"Dearest, you believe in the good God, don't you ?" she queried after some moments' reflection.

Her face was serious; she had been overcome by pious terrors on quitting her lover's arms.
Since morning, indeed, she had been complaining of feeling uncomfortable, and all her stupid notions, as she phrased it, notions about death and hell, were secretly torturing her.

From time to time she had nights such as these, during which childish fears and atrocious fancies would thrill her with waking nightmares.

She continued: "I say, d'you think I shall go to heaven ?" And with that she shivered, while the count, in his surprise at her putting such singular questions at such a moment, felt his old religious remorse returning upon him.

Then with her chemise slipping from her shoulders and her hair unpinned, she again threw herself upon his breast, sobbing and clinging to him as she did so.
"I'm afraid of dying! I'm afraid of dying!" He had all the trouble in the world to disengage himself.