“My God! my God! protect me,” stammered Marguerite, raising her eyes and hands to heaven.
“Morlaix! Morlaix!” said the marquis, rising and advancing toward Paul, “Morlaix!—pardon! mercy!” and he fell at full length upon the floor.
“My father!” cried Marguerite, rushing to his assistance.
At that moment a servant entered the room, with terror in his looks, and addressing the marchioness said—
“Madam, Achard has sent to request that the priest and the doctor of the castle, may instantly be ordered to attend him—he is dying.”
“Tell him,” replied the marchioness, pointing to her husband, whom Marguerite was vainly endeavoring to restore to consciousness, “that they are both obliged to remain here to attend upon the marquis.”
CHAPTER XIV.—RELIGIOUS CONVICTION.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
Shakespeare.
As has been seen by the end of the preceding chapter, God, by one of those extraordinary combinations, which short-sighted man almost always attributes to chance, had summoned to his presence, and almost at the same moment, the souls of the noble Marquis d’Auray, and the poor low-born Achard. We have seen that the former, struck by the sight of Paul, the living portrait of his father, as if by a thunderbolt, fell at the feet of the young man, who was himself terrified at the effect his appearance had produced.