"Before that moment, my life had amounted to naught. My latent self suddenly sprang into being. To be satisfied with killing a spy! What puerility! So little sufficed the inferior nature of Giacinto."
Thus communed Pierre Louis, as the imperious face of Amélie, her mouth drawn in bitter disdain, with a terrible frown as of an avenging archangel, came to his mind's eye. She stood for the feminine suggestion there is in all tragedy. Great souls are lonely. They so love their ideals that they cannot compromise nor forgive. It seemed to him that the splendid eyes of Naundorff's daughter had fearlessly and unhesitatingly shown him the way to the Prince. As a somnambulist moves, he had accomplished the deed. With his small dagger, he had dealt a marvelously dexterous blow, rapid and to the spot. Ferdinand felt no wound, not even the coldness of the blade; he thought some one chanced to strike against him; suddenly he realized he was about to fall. None of the others suspected the truth. Meanwhile the assailant disappeared. On reaching the corner of Richelieu street, Louis Pierre nonchalantly slackened his speed and started toward the dark arcades, today in ruins, opposite the stupendous edifice of the library. He was safe from pursuit. None of those near whom he had stood before the theatre knew him. He told himself that his life had trembled on the edge of a blade.
Just then he passed an inn wherein coffee was being served. Fate ordained that a waiter carrying a tray upon which the fragrant beverage steamed should step out of the door and stumble against him, an accident occasioning the breaking of the dishes. The waiter turned infuriated upon the causer of the damage, and, chasing him into the darkness of an alley, caught him by the collar and shook him soundly. The Carbonaro was such a weakling! He seemed to hear an interior voice saying:
"You have wrought. Now 'tis this man's turn."
When Ferdinand reached the vestibule, he involuntarily put his hand to his side, over the unsuspected wound. He felt the projecting hilt of the dagger. The entire blade was buried in his body. He cried out in pain as the fine triangular weapon was extracted. The Princess Caroline hurried back from her carriage and threw her arms around him and those bare round arms were bathed in blood. Then followed tender heart-rending adieux. The dying Prince poured out his soul during his last hours even as his body delivered up its life. He spoke of glory, of patriotism, of Christian faith, of love, of past faults; but more insistently than ought else, did he plead for the assassin's pardon. As the King bent over him, his lips, livid with the approach of death, implored:
"Forgive him, forgive him! We are all sinners, having need of forgiveness. Sire and uncle, say yes!"
As the King maintained silence, he groaned:
"O my God, do you deny me this dying consolation?"
In his agony, as fever consumed his ebbing life, this descendant of Henry of Navarre, so like that glorious ancestor, even in the manner of his death, murmured:
"Forgive him, forgive him!"