Camillia caught hold of her hand. "He can see my father. Ah, then he is safe; he is safe, Pauline?" she cried.
The Frenchwoman did not answer, but silently led Paul from the room.
He followed her down the stairs; but on the threshold of Don Juan's chamber she paused, and took the young man's hand in hers, which was icy cold.
"Prepare yourself for a fearful shock, Paul," she said, "for an awful sight. Are you brave enough to encounter them?"
"What you, a woman, can endure, I can also bear," he answered calmly.
"Crime brings a fearful retribution," murmured the Frenchwoman, in an awe-stricken voice; "and however slow the footsteps of the avenger, he is not the less sure to overtake his victim. Your uncle has paid the penalty of his sins."
She opened the door, and the young man followed her into the chamber.
It was the chamber of death.
Don Juan Moraquitos lay upon the rich Persian carpet, his face toward the ground, and a pistol lying a few paces from his outstretched hand.
A more ghastly sight had never been shone upon by the bright summer sun, whose beams stole into the apartment through the Venetian shutters, and illuminated the blood-stained floor, on which the suicide was stretched.