"Silence!" cried Louvois, incensed. "If you have no respect for the living, have some reverence for the dead!"
Barbesieur rose with a yawn. "I see that my honored father is not in a mood for reasonable conversation. Here comes the surgeon with his lancet. Perhaps, when you have lost a few quarts of your bad blood, you may see things in a better light." So saying, he sauntered out of the room. With scorn and hatred in his eye, Louvois watched him until he disappeared from sight; then turning to the surgeon, who had entered by another door—
"Be quick, and take some blood from my veins, or I shall suffocate!"
A half an hour later, the operation was over, and Louvois felt much relieved. His face was pale, his eyes no longer bloodshot, and the surgeon having prescribed rest, the disgraced favorite was left alone.
He sat propped up in his arm-chair, staring at vacancy—his solitude embittered by the recollection of what he was, and what he had been. The stately edifice of greatness, which he had spent a lifetime in erecting, had fallen like a chateau de cartes, leaving nothing behind but the stinging recollection of a glorious past. He could not outlive it—he could not retire to obscurity—he—
Suddenly he shivered, and gazed with eyes distended at the figure of a woman that now stood against the portiere opposite. Great God! had delirium seized upon his senses? Were the memories of his youth about to take shape and form, and mingle their shadowy images with the tangible realities of life! He knew her—tall, beautiful, pale as she was—and the recognition filled him with terror indefinable.
He knew her well! In her youth he had loved her, but she had scorned his love, because she was cherishing the hope of becoming Queen of France! This triumph had been denied her, and she had hidden her disappointment by a marriage with another. And fearfully had Louvois avenged her rejection of his love! He had cited her as a criminal, before the highest tribunal in France, and had driven her into exile. Destiny had also given him power to crush her son—to blast his life as a lover, and his good name as a man. But ah! that daughter whom Eugene had loved! He had blasted her life also, and had given her over to a monster that had murdered her! So young, so lovely, so attractive! She had died to gratify the malice of her own father!
Like a lightning-flash these thoughts glanced athwart his brain, while, breathless and terror-stricken, he gazed upon the spectre that stood against the portiere!
Was it a spectre, or some delusion of his disordered mind? She stood motionless as a marble statue of Nemesis; but those eyes—those glowing eyes—there was life and hate in their fiery depths!
Louvois had not the power to look away; he was as spellbound as a bird under the glance of the basilisk.