Though the shades of death were already darkening his eyes, Joseph Picaut saw the apparition; for he cried out, in a voice broken with agony:--
"The widow! the widow!"
The widow of Pascal Picaut, for it was she, walked slowly forward, without a glance at Courtin or Maître Jacques, who, pressing his left hand on a wound in his breast, was striving to rise upon his right; then she stopped in front of her brother-in-law and gazed at him with an eye that was still threatening.
"A priest! a priest!" cried the dying man, horrified by that awful phantom, which roused a hitherto unknown feeling in his breast,--that of remorse.
"A priest! What good will a priest do you, miserable man? Can he bring back to life your brother whom you murdered?"
"No, no!" cried Joseph; "no, I did not murder Pascal. I swear it by eternity, to which I am now going!"
"You did not kill him, but you let others do so,--if, indeed, you did not urge them to the crime. Not content with that, you fired at me. You would have been twice a fratricide in one day if the hand of a brave man had not pushed aside your weapon. But be sure of this: it is not the harm you tried to do to me that I am avenging. It is the hand of God that strikes you through me--Cain!"
"What!" exclaimed Joseph Picaut and Maître Jacques, "that shot--"
"I fired it; I knew I should surprise you here in the commission of another crime, and it was I who shot you in the act. Yes, Joseph, yes; you so brave, you so proud of your strength, bow down before God's judgment!--you die by a woman's hand."
"What matters it to me how I die? Death comes from God. I implore you, woman, give my repentance chance for efficacy; let me be reconciled to the Heaven I have offended; bring me a priest, I implore you!"