CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.
THE LAST DEATH.
It seemed to me almost as if time had been standing still since that first morning when Monsieur Laurentie had left my side, and passed out of my sight to seek for my husband in the fever-smitten dwelling. Yet it was the tenth day after that when, as I took up my weary watch soon after daybreak, I saw him crossing the court again, and coming toward me.
"What had he to say? What could impel him to break through the strict rule which had interdicted all dangerous contact with himself? His face was pale, and his eyes were heavy as if with want of rest, but they looked into mine as if they could read my inmost soul.
"My daughter," he said, "I bade you leave even your duty in my keeping. Now I summon you to fulfil it. Your duty lies yonder, by your husband's side in his agony of death."
"I will go," I whispered, my lips scarcely moving to pronounce the words, so stiff and cold they felt.
"Stay one moment," he said, pityingly. "You have been taught to judge of your duty for yourself, not to leave it to a priest. I ought to let you judge now. Your husband is dying, but he is conscious, and is asking to see you. He does not believe us that death is near; he says none but you will tell him the truth. You cannot go to him without running a great risk. Your danger will be greater than ours, who have been with him all the time. You see, madame, he does not understand me, and he refuses to believe in Tardif. Yet you cannot save him; you can only receive his last adieu. Think well, my child. Your life may be the forfeit."
"I must go," I answered, more firmly; "I will go. He is my husband."
"Good!" he said, "you have chosen the better part. Come, then. The good God will protect you."
He drew my hand through his arm, and led me to the low doorway. The inner room was very dark with the overhanging eaves, and my eyes, dilated by the strong sunlight, could discern but little in the gloom. Tardif was kneeling beside a low bed, bathing my husband's forehead. He made way for me, and I felt him touch my hand with his lips as I took his place. But no one spoke. Richard's face, sunken, haggard, dying, with filmy eyes, dawned gradually out of the dim twilight, line after line, until it lay sharp and distinct under my gaze. I could not turn away from it for an instant, even to glance at Tardif or Monsieur Laurentie. The poor, miserable face! the restless, dreary, dying eyes!
"Where is Olivia?" he muttered, in a hoarse and labored voice.
"I am here, Richard," I answered, falling on my knees where Tardif had been kneeling, and putting my hand on his; "look at me. I am Olivia."
"You are mine, you know," he said, his fingers closing round my wrist with a grasp as weak as a very young child's.—"She is my wife, Monsieur le Curé."
"Yes," I sobbed, "I am your wife, Richard."
"Do they hear it?" he asked, in a whisper.
"We hear it," answered Tardif.
A strange, spasmodic smile flitted across his ghastly face, a look of triumph and success. His fingers tightened over my hand, and I left it passively in their clasp.
"Mine!" he murmured.
"Olivia," he said, after a long pause, and in a stronger voice, "you always spoke the truth to me. This priest and his follower have been trying to frighten me into repentance, as if I were an old woman. They say I am near dying. Tell me, is it true?"
The last words he had spoken painfully, dragging them one after another, as if the very utterance of them was hateful to him. He looked at me with his cold, glittering eyes, which seemed almost mocking at me, even then.
"Richard," I said, "it is true."
"Good God!" he cried.
His lips closed after that cry, and seemed as if they would never open again. He shut his eyes weariedly. Feebly and fitfully came his gasps for breath, and he moaned at times. But still his fingers held me fast, though the slightest effort of mine would have set me free. I left my hand in his cold grasp, and spoke to him whenever he moaned.
"Martin," he breathed between his set teeth, though so low that only my ear could catch the words, "Martin—could—have saved—me."
There was another long silence. I could hear the chirping of the sparrows in the thatched roof, but no other sound broke the deep stillness. Monsieur Laurentie and Tardif stood at the foot of the bed, looking down upon us both, but I only saw their shadows falling across us. My eyes were fastened upon the face I should soon see no more. The little light there was seemed to be fading away from it, leaving it all dark and blank; eyelids closed, lips almost breathless; an unutterable emptiness and confusion creeping over every feature.
"Olivia!" he cried, once again, in a tone of mingled anger and entreaty.
"I am here," I answered, laying my other hand upon his, which was at last relaxing its hold, and falling away helplessly. But where was he? Where was the voice which half a minute ago called Olivia? Where was the life gone that had grasped my hand? He had not heard my answer, or felt my touch upon his cold fingers.
Tardif lifted me gently from my place beside him, and carried me away into the open air, under the overshadowing eaves.