I found it closed but not locked, and pushing it open, listened for a moment, then took a glance within. All was quiet and ghostly. A single candle guttering on the table at one end of the room lent a partial light by which I could discern the funereal bed and the other heavy and desolate-looking articles of furniture with which the room was encumbered. Honora's flowers, withering on the window seat, spoke of tender hopes not yet vanished from her tender dreams, but elsewhere all was hard, all was dreary, all was inexorably forbidding and cold. I shuddered as I looked, and shuddered still more as I approached the bed and paused firmly before it.
"Madame Letellier"—it was the only name by which I could bring myself to address her at that instant—"there is one gleam of brightness in your sky. The marquis knows the story of your guilt, yet consents to marry your daughter."
I received no reply.
Shaken by fresh doubts, and moved by an inexplicable terror, I stood still for a moment gathering up my strength, then I repeated my words, this time with sharp emphasis and scarcely concealed importunity.
"Madame," said I, "the marquis knows your guilt, yet consents to marry your daughter."
But the silence within remained unbroken, and not a movement displaced the somber falling curtains.
Agitated beyond endurance, I stretched forth my hands and drew those curtains aside. An unexpected sight met my eyes. There was no madame there; the bed was empty.