She was suddenly endowed with that clearness of mental vision so often granted to the dying. She saw how she had wrought her own undoing by consenting to accept the perfidious role imposed upon her by her father, and how she, herself, had paved the way for the falsehoods, slander, crimes and misfortunes of which she had been the victim.
Her voice grew fainter and fainter. Worn out by suffering, a sensation of drowsiness stole over her. She was falling asleep in the arms of death.
Suddenly such a terrible thought pierced the stupor which enveloped her that she uttered a heart-breaking cry:
“My child!”
Collecting, by a superhuman effort, all the will, energy, and strength that the poison had left her, she straightened herself in her arm-chair, her features contracted by mortal anguish.
“Blanche!” she said, with an energy of which one would have supposed her incapable. “Blanche, listen to me. It is the secret of my life which I am about to disclose; no one suspects it. I have a son by Maurice. Alas! many months have elapsed since my husband disappeared. If he is dead, what will become of my child? Blanche, you, who have killed me, must swear to me that you will be a mother to my child!”
Blanche was utterly overcome.
“I swear!” she sobbed, “I swear!”
“On that condition, but on that condition alone, I pardon you. But take care! Do not forget your oath! Blanche, God sometimes permits the dead to avenge themselves! You have sworn, remember.
“My spirit will allow you no rest if you do not fulfil your vow.”