"In the afternoon they departed on their honeymoon tour, and the old lady was left mistress of the villa during the absence of the newly-married pair. She exercised her authority in a way that was not pleasing to us. No wonder, therefore, that we looked upon her with dislike, and spoke of it as an evil day when she came among us; but that did not lessen our horror at an accident which befell her, and which led to her death.
"Mr. and Mrs. Almer had been absent barely three weeks when the old lady going into a distant part of the grounds where workmen were employed in building up some rocks to serve as an artificial waterfall, fell into a pit, and was so frightfully bruised and shaken that, when she was taken up, the doctors declared she could not live another twenty-four hours. Letters were immediately sent off to Mr. Almer, but there was no chance of his receiving them before the unfortunate old lady breathed her last. We did everything we could for her, and she took it into her head that she would have no one to attend to her but me.
"'My daughter is fond of you,' she said on her deathbed, 'and will be pleased that I have chosen you before the other servants. Keep them all away from me.'
"It was many hours before she could be made to believe that there was no hope for her, and when the conviction was forced upon her, she cried, in a tone of great bitterness:
"'This is a fatal house! First my husband--now me! Will Beatrice be the next?'
"And then she bemoaned her hard fate that she should have to die just at the time that a life of pleasure was spread before her. Yes, she spoke in that way, just as if she was a young girl, instead of an old woman with white hair. A life of pleasure! Do some people never think of another life, a life of rewards and punishments, according to their actions in this world? The old lady was one of these, I am afraid. Three or four hours before she died she said she must speak to me quite alone, and the doctors accordingly left the room.
"'I want you to tell me the truth, Denise,' she said; I had to place my ear quite close to her lips to hear her.
"'I will tell you,' I said.
"'It would be a terrible sin to deceive a dying woman,' she said.
"I answered I knew it was, and I would not deceive her.