“Should you ask it of him, he would.”
“And by what right could I demand it?” said the marchioness; “by what right could I ask him to spare me, to spare Emanuel, to spare Marguerite? He would say, ‘I do not know you, madam—I have never seen you—you are my mother, and that is all I know.’”
“In his name,” stammered Achard, whose tongue death was beginning to benumb, “in his name, madam, I engage, I swear—oh! my God! my God!”
The marchioness arose, observing attentively by the old man’s features, the approach of death.
“You engage, you swear!” she said, “is he here to ratify this engagement—you engage! you swear! and on your word, you would, that I should stake the years I have yet to live, against the moments which yet remain between you and death! I have entreated, I have implored, and again, I entreat and implore you to give up those papers to me.”
“Those papers now are his.”
“I must have them! I repeat, I must have them,” continued the marchioness, gaining strength, as the dying man became more feeble.
“My God! my God! have mercy upon me!” murmured Achard.
“No one can now come,” rejoined the marchioness “you told me that you wore the key of that closet always about you——”
“Would you wrest it from the hands of a dying man?”