“Tell us of yourself, Herr Robert,” said my mother, in a kind voice, as she sat down beside him. “Do you feel any pain?”
He seemed not to hear her, but muttered indistinctly to himself. Then, turning short round to me, he said,—
“I have forgotten the number of the house, but you can't mistake it. It is the only one with a stone balcony over the entrance gate. It was well enough known once. John Law's house,—the 'Rue Quincampoix.' The room looks to the back—and the safe—Who is listening to us?”
I reassured him, and he went on:—
“The ingots were forged as if coming from the gold mines of Louisiana. D'Argenson knew the trick, and the Regent too. They it was who wrecked him,—they and Tencivi.”
His eyes grew heavy, and his voice subsided to a mere murmur after this, and he seemed to fall off in a drowsy stupor. The whole of that day and the next he lingered on thus, breathing heavily, and at intervals seeming to endeavor to rally himself from the oppression of sleep; but in vain! Exhaustion was complete, and he passed away calmly, and so quietly that we did not mark the moment when he ceased to breathe.
My mother led me away weeping from the room, and Raper remained to look after his papers and make the few arrangements for his humble burial.
The same day that we laid him in the earth came a letter from the Count de Gabriac to say that he would be with us on the morrow. It was the only letter he had written for several months past, and my mother's joy was boundless at the prospect of seeing him. Thus did sunshine mingle with shadow in our life, and tears of happiness mingle with those of sorrow!