“Save me! oh! save me, father!” cried Marguerite, wringing her hands, and throwing herself back in despair.
“Take this pen and sign,” said the marchioness, “you must—it is my will.”
“Now, I am lost indeed!” cried Marguerite, overwhelmed with terror, and feeling that she had no longer strength to continue the struggle.
But at the moment that the marquis, overpowered, had written the first letters of his name; when the marchioness was congratulating herself on the victory she had obtained, and Marguerite was about to leave the room in despair, an unexpected incident suddenly changed the scene. The door of the study opened, and Paul, who had been anxiously watching, though invisibly, the whole of this terrible conflict, issued from it.
“Madam,” said he, “one word before this contract is signed!”
“Who is it calls me!” said the marchioness, endeavoring to distinguish in the distance that separated them, the person who had thus spoken, and who stood in a dark corner of the room.
“I know that voice!” exclaimed the marquis, shuddering, as if seared by a red-hot iron.
Paul advanced three paces, and the light from the lustre hanging in the centre of the room fell full upon him.
“Is it a spectre?” cried the marchioness, in her turn, struck with the resemblance of the youth who stood before her to her former lover.
“I know that face!” cried the marquis, believing that he saw the man whom he had killed.