As she spoke, a great calm came to Jack, following all the bitterness and anger of the past weeks.
“Then you love me?” he whispered.
“Yes, Jack; I have always loved you.”
Whispered in this alcove, that had heard so many dying groans, this word love had a most extraordinary sweetness, as if some wandering bird had taken refuge there.
“How good you are to come, Cécile! Now I shall not utter another murmur. I am ready to die, with you at my side.”
“Die! Who is talking of dying?” said the old doctor in his heartiest voice. “Have no fear, my boy, we will pull you through. You do not look like the same person you were when we came.”
This was true enough. He was transfigured with happiness. He pressed Cécile’s hand to his cheek, and whispered an occasional word of tenderness.
“All that was lacking to me in life, you have given me, dear. You have been friend and sister, wife and mother.”
But his excitement soon gave place to exhaustion, his feverish color to frightful pallor. The ravages made by disease were only too plainly visible. Cécile looked at her grandfather in fright; the room was full of shadows, and it seemed to her that she recognized a Presence more sombre, more mysterious than Night.
Suddenly Jack half lifted himself: “I hear her,” he whispered; “she is coming!”