“Perhaps the count wishes that it should be opened?”
“Yes, yes!” was the reply again.
“My God!” exclaimed Mademoiselle Marguerite, with a gesture of despair; “what have I done? I have broken the key. I feared the responsibility which would fall upon us all.”
The expression of the count’s face had become absolutely frightful. It indicated utter discouragement, the most bitter suffering, the most horrible despair. His soul was writhing in a body from which life had fled. Intelligence, mind, and will were fast bound in a corpse which they could not electrify. The consciousness of his own powerlessness caused him a paroxysm of frantic rage; his hands clinched, the veins in his throat swelled, his eyes almost started from their sockets, and in a harsh, shrill voice that had nothing human in it, he exclaimed: “Marguerite!—despoiled!—take care!—your mother!” And this was all—it was the supreme effort that broke the last link that bound the soul to earth.
“A priest!” cried Madame Leon! “A priest! In the name of Heaven, go for a priest!”
“Rather for a notary,” suggested M. Casimir. “You see he wishes to make a will.”
But at that moment the physician entered, pale and breathless. He walked straight to the bedside, glanced at the motionless form, and solemnly exclaimed: “The Count de Chalusse is dead!”
There was a moment’s stupor—the stupor which always follows death, especially when death comes suddenly and unexpectedly. A feeling of mingled wonder, selfishness, and fear pervaded the group of servants. “Yes, it is over!” muttered the doctor; “it is all over!”
And as he was familiar with these painful scenes, and had lost none of his self-possession, he furtively studied Mademoiselle Marguerite’s features and attitude. She seemed thunderstruck. With dry, fixed eyes and contracted features, she stood rooted to her place, gazing at the lifeless form as if she were expecting some miracle—as if she still hoped to hear those rigid lips reveal the secret which he had tried in vain to disclose, and which he had carried with him to the grave.
The physician was the only person who observed this. The other occupants of the room were exchanging looks of distress. Some of the women had fallen upon their knees, and were sobbing and praying in the same breath. But Madame Leon’s sobs could be heard above the rest. They were at first inarticulate moans, but suddenly she sprang toward Mademoiselle Marguerite, and clasping her in her arms, she cried: “What a misfortune! My dearest child, what a loss!” Utterly incapable of uttering a word, the poor girl tried to free herself from this close embrace, but the housekeeper would not be repulsed, and continued: “Weep, my dear young lady, weep! Do not refuse to give vent to your sorrow.”