“His smothered cry produced a terrible effect upon the Countess; she sat motionless, as if a sudden stupor had seized her. Her husband was as white and wasted as if he had risen out of his grave.
“‘You have filled my life to the full with trouble, and now you are trying to vex my deathbed, to warp my boy’s mind, and make a depraved man of him!’ he cried, hoarsely.
“The Countess flung herself at his feet. His face, working with the last emotions of life, was almost hideous to see.
“‘Mercy! mercy!’ she cried aloud, shedding a torrent of tears.
“‘Have you shown me any pity?’ he asked. ‘I allowed you to squander your own money, and now do you mean to squander my fortune, too, and ruin my son?’
“‘Ah! well, yes, have no pity for me, be merciless to me!’ she cried. ‘But the children? Condemn your widow to live in a convent; I will obey you; I will do anything, anything that you bid me, to expiate the wrong I have done you, if that so the children may be happy! The children! Oh, the children!’
“‘I have only one child,’ said the Count, stretching out a wasted arm, in his despair, towards his son.
“‘Pardon a penitent woman, a penitent woman!...’ wailed the Countess, her arms about her husband’s damp feet. She could not speak for sobbing; vague, incoherent sounds broke from her parched throat.
“‘You dare to talk of penitence after all that you said to Ernest!’ exclaimed the dying man, shaking off the Countess, who lay groveling over his feet.—‘You turn me to ice!’ he added, and there was something appalling in the indifference with which he uttered the words. ‘You have been a bad daughter; you have been a bad wife; you will be a bad mother.’
“The wretched woman fainted away. The dying man reached his bed and lay down again, and a few hours later sank into unconsciousness. The priests came and administered the sacraments.