"Let it be so! I understood. I feared that an interview would be mortal. He had been so terribly agitated when he had sent for me that other time.
"But I, at least, wished to recall to him his former wish which he had expressed of providing for the girl's future. I desired that he should make up for the past, since money is one of the forms of reparation. But I dared not speak to him again in regard to it, or of that trust of which he had spoken.
"He said to me, this strong man whom Death had never frightened, and whom he had braved many times, he said to me now, weakened by this illness which was killing him hour by hour:
"If I knew that my end was near I would decide—but I have time."
"Time! Each day brought him a little nearer to that life about which I feared to say to him: 'The time has come!' The fear, in urging him to a last resolution, of seeming like an executioner whose presence seemed to say: 'To-day is the day!' prevented me. You understand, Monsieur? And why not? I ought to wait no longer. Rovère's confidence had made of me a second Rovère who possessed the strength and force of will which the first one now lacked. I felt that I held in my hands, so to speak, Marthe's fate. I did not know her, but I looked upon her as a martyr in her vocation of nurse to the old paralytic to whom she was paying, in love, the debt of the dead wife. I said to myself: 'It is to me, to me alone, that Rovère must give instructions of what he wishes to leave to his daughter, and it is for me to urge him to do this, it is for me to brace his weakened will! I was resolved! It was a duty! Each day the unhappy man's strength failed. I saw it—this human ruin! One morning, when I went to his apartments, I found him in a singular state of terror. He related me a story, I knew not what, of a thief, whose victim he was; the lock of his door had been forced, his safe opened. Then, suddenly, interrupting himself, he began to laugh, a feeble laugh, which made me ill.
"'I am a fool,' he said. 'I am dreaming, awake—I continue in the daytime the nightmares of the night—a thief here! No one has come—Mme. Moniche has watched—but my head is so weak, so weak! I have known so many rascals in my life! Rascals always return, hein!'
"He made a sad attempt at a laugh.
"It was delirium! A delirium which soon passed away, but which frightened me. It returned with increased force each day, and at shorter intervals.
"Well, I said to myself, during a lucid interview, 'he must do what he has resolved to do, what he had willed to do—what he wishes to do!' And I decided—it was the night before the assassination—to bring him to the point, to aid his hesitation. I found him calmer that day. He was lying on his lounge, enveloped in his dressing gown, with a traveling rug thrown across his thin legs. With his black skull-cap and his grayish beard he looked like a dying Doge.
"He held out his bony hand to me, giving me a sad smile, and said that he felt better. A period of remission in his disease, a feeling of comfort pervading his general condition.