“It is false!” Bertrand cried impulsively.
He had jumped to his feet.
Clinging with one hand to the edge of the table, he faced the old Comtesse, his eyes gazing horror-struck upon that stern impassive face, on which scarce a tremor had passed while she delivered this merciless judgment on her own son.
“It is false!” the young man reiterated.
“It is true, Bertrand,” the old woman rejoined quietly. “The ring which you now wear, I myself took off his finger, after the pistol dropped from his lifeless hand.”
She was on the point of saying something more, when a long-drawn sigh, a moan, and an ominous thud, stayed the words upon her lips. Bertrand looked up at once, and the next moment darted across the room. There lay his mother, half crouching against the door frame to which she had clung when she felt herself swooning. Bertrand was down on his knees in an instant, and Micheline came as fast as she could to his side.
“Quick, Micheline, help me!” Bertrand whispered hurriedly. “She is as light as a feather. I’ll carry her to her room.”
The only one who had remained quite unmoved was the old Comtesse. When she heard the moan, and then the thud, she glanced coolly over her shoulder, and seeing her daughter-in-law, crouching helpless in the doorway, she only said dryly:
“My good Marcelle, why make a fuss? The boy was bound to know——”
But already Bertrand had lifted the poor feeble body in his arms, and was carrying his mother along the corridor to her own room. Here he deposited her on the sofa, on which in truth she spent most of her days, and here she lay now with her head against the pillows, her face so pale and drawn that Bertrand felt a great wave of love and sympathy for her surging in his heart.