Then, suddenly, once more her voice sounded clearly in the silence of the room; he heard her say: "What I tell you now will make me accursed in the eyes of all the Church--our Church. I am about to confide to you a secret that all in that Church have ordered me never to divulge, or I would have done it long since. Yet now I must tell it."
"A secret," he repeated silently to himself, "a secret!" Therefore he knew that her mind must indeed be wandering. What secret could this saintly woman have to reveal? Ah! yes, she was indeed wandering! Yet, even as he thought this, he reflected how strange a thing it was that, while he had actually a revelation to make to her--one that his honour prompted him to make--she, in the delirium of coming death, should imagine that she had something which it behooved her to disclose.
Once more he heard her speaking. Heard her say:
"All deem that with me perishes the last bearer, man or woman, of the de Rochebazon name. It is not so. There is probably one in existence."
"Madame!" the young man exclaimed very quietly, yet startled, almost appalled. "Madame! A de Rochebazon in existence! Are you conscious of what you are saying?" and he leaned a little over the coverlet and gazed into her eyes as he spoke. Surely this was wandering.
"As conscious as that I am dying here, as that you, Martin Ashurst, are sitting by my side."
"I am astounded. How long has what you state been known--supposed--by you?"
"Known--not supposed--since I became Henri de Beauvillier's wife, forty-six years ago."
"My God! What does it mean? A de Rochebazon alive! Man or woman?"
"Man!"