"My wife and child!" he interrupted--"my wife and child! Are they dead, too?"
"Alas! monsieur, I never saw Madame la Marquise. She--she--died the year I was born."
De Chevagny straightened himself upon the bench--as he did so there came to Bertie's recollection how his own father had so straightened himself as he died in his arms a few years before, and he wondered why he recalled that incident at this moment--then the marquis said:
"The year you were born? How old are you?"
"Forty-one, monsieur."
"Forty-one!" he whispered, "forty-one! So! she lived four years. Four years. And I--I--have been hoping, praying--O God! how I have prayed!--to see her again--to see her again, while for forty-one years she has been lying in her grave--in her grave!"
He paused awhile, perhaps because he heard the sobs of Bertie and the woman mingling with his own; then he said:
"And the little child--my dear, dear little babe! Is--is she dead, too?"
"Non, monsieur--at least I think not. She----"
"Thank God!"