“Marie-Anne is dead!” he exclaimed.
Jean and the abbe were silent.
“Dead!” Maurice repeated—“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 any response, he darted toward the staircase so quickly that neither Jean nor the abbe had time to intercept him.
With three bounds he reached the chamber; he walked straight to the bed, and with a firm hand turned back the sheet that hid the face of the dead.
He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.
Was this indeed the beautiful, the radiant Marie-Anne, whom he had loved to his own undoing! He did not recognize her.