"My name is Pradeline," came deliriously from the wretched girl. "Yes—because—I always sing."
"Unhappy child!" cried Lebrenn. "Poor girl, she is delirious!"
"George," she resumed, her mind wandering, "listen to my songs—"
And in an expiring voice she improvised to her favorite melody:
"I feel th'approach of death,
I'm breathing my last breath—
It is my fate, and yet
I grieve—to die—"
She did not complete the last line. Her arms twitched; her head drooped upon her shoulder. She was dead.
That instant, Gildas opened the door that communicated with a back staircase leading to the upper story, and said to the merchant:
"Monsieur, the colonel upstairs wishes to speak with you."
The merchant went up to his own bed chamber, where the colonel had been quartered as a measure of precaution.