‘You have seen no friend during your dismal imprisonment,’ said Louise; ‘let me therefore be your confidant, if there is aught you will stoop to trust me with. Remember that we shall meet no more. O madame! for your own sake! as you valued Gaudin’s love! do not go forth to-morrow in enmity against one who, if she wronged you, did it innocently. What can I do to serve you?’
She uttered the last words with such truthful earnestness that Marie’s pride relaxed, and Pirot at the same instant rose from his prie-dieu and came towards them. As Louise extended her hand the Marchioness took it, and he saw, for the first time since he had been with her, that she was weeping. He led them to one of the prison seats, and in a few minutes Marie was confiding a message to Louise, at his request, for her children.
The interview lasted half an hour; and when it finished the Marchioness was perfectly exhausted. She had scarcely strength sufficient to tell Pirot that she wished him with her at daylight, when she fell back, unable to keep up any longer, against the damp wall of the prison. The good doctor summoned the females who had attended upon her since her capture, and then, when he saw she was recovering, he took his leave, accompanied by Louise, who left him in the Rue de Calandre to return to her friends at the boat-mill.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE WATER QUESTION—EXILI—THE PLACE DE GRÊVE
The early morning of the terrible day arrived. With its first dawn the good Pirot, according to his promise, was at the gates of the Conciergerie; and being immediately conducted to the cell in which Marie was confined, discovered that she had not been to bed that night, but since the departure of Louise Gauthier had been occupied in writing to various branches of her family.
She rose to receive him as he entered; and at a sign the person who had been in attendance took her departure. Pirot observed that her eyelids were red with watching, not from tears: but a fire was burning in her eyes with almost unearthly brilliancy. Her cheek was flushed with hectic patches, and her whole frame was trembling with nervous excitement. As the doctor saluted her with the conventional words of greeting she smiled and replied—
‘You forget, monsieur, that I shall scarcely witness the noon of to-day. A few hours—only a few hours more! I have often tried to imagine the feelings of those who were condemned; and now that I am almost upon the scaffold it appears like some troubled dream.’
‘We will not waste this brief interval in speculations,’ replied Pirot. ‘The officers of the prison will soon interrupt us. Have you nothing to confide to me before they arrive?’
‘They will take charge of these letters I have written, and will read them before they send them forth,’ replied Marie. ‘But here is one,’ she continued, as her voice hesitated and fell, ‘that I could wish you yourself would deliver. It is to M. de Brinvilliers, my husband; it relates only to him, and—my children!’
Pirot looked at her as she spoke, and her face betrayed the violent emotion that the mention of her children had given rise to. She struggled with her pride for a few seconds, and then broke down into a natural and violent burst of tears. Her sympathies had been scarcely touched whilst merely thinking of her two little daughters; but the instant she named them to another her wonderful self-possession gave way. She leant upon the rude table, and covering her face with her mantle wept aloud.