While Maurice spoke in this fashion, so hopefully, so confidently, Jean and the abbe, realising the bitter truth, sought to avert their faces; but they could not conceal their agitation from young D’Escorval’s searching glance. “What is the matter?” he asked, with evident surprise.
They trembled, hung their heads, but did not say a word. Maurice’s astonishment changed to a vague, inexpressible fear. He enumerated all the misfortunes which could possibly have befallen him.
“What has happened?” he asked in a husky voice. “My father is safe is he not? You said that my mother would want nothing more, if I were only by her side again. Is it Marie-Anne then——” He hesitated.
“Courage, Maurice,” murmured the abbe. “Courage!”
The young fellow tottered as if he were about to fall. He had turned intensely pale. “Marie-Anne is dead!” he exclaimed.
Jean and the abbe were silent.
“Dead!” repeated Maurice; “and no secret voice warned me! Dead! When?”
“She died only last night,” replied Jean.
Maurice rose. “Last night?” said he. “In that case, then, she is still here. Where?—upstairs?” And without waiting for a reply, he darted toward the staircase so quickly that neither Jean nor the abbe had time to intercept him. With three bounds he reached the room above; he walked straight to the bed, and with a firm hand turned back the sheet that hid his loved one’s face. But at the same moment he recoiled with a heart-broken cry. What! was this the beautiful, the radiant Marie-Anne—she whom he had loved so fervently! He did not recognize her. He could not recognize these distorted features—that swollen, discoloured face—these eyes, now almost hidden by the purple swelling round them. When Jean and the priest entered the room they found him standing with his head thrown back, his eyes dilated with terror, his right arm rigidly extended toward the corpse. “Maurice,” said the priest, gently, “be calm. Courage!”
The young fellow turned with an expression of complete bewilderment upon his features. “Yes,” he faltered; “that is what I need—courage!” He staggered as he spoke, and they were obliged to support him to an arm-chair.