"Rest in peace," I said; "I forgive you."
Before I had done speaking, his withered face lighted up with a flash of joy and youth. Two tears burst from his dry and sunken orbits. He stretched a hand to me, then suddenly the hand stiffened in a threatening gesture, and I saw his eyes roll between their dilated lids, as if a ball had gone through his heart.
"Oh, the English!" he whispered, and immediately fell back on the pillow like a log. He was dead. I called quickly, and the others came. Soon he was surrounded by pious mourners, weeping and praying for him. I retired, my soul deeply moved by this extraordinary scene, which I had resolved should ever remain a secret between myself and the dead man.
This sad event brought me cares and duties which I needed to justify me in my own eyes for remaining in the house. I cannot fathom M. Laubépin's motives for advising me to delay my departure. What did he hope from it? To me he seems to have yielded to a vague presentiment and childish weakness, to which a man of his stamp should never have given way, and to which I also was wrong to submit. Why did he not see that besides bringing additional suffering on me, he put me in a position that is neither manly nor dignified? What am I to do here now? Would they not have good reason to reproach me with trifling with sacred feelings? My first interview with Mlle. Marguerite had shown me how hard and how unbearable was the trial to which I had been condemned. The death of M. Laroque would make our relations easier, and give my presence a sort of propriety.
October 26th, Rennes.
All is over! God, how strong that tie was! How it held my heart, and how it has torn it as it broke! Yesterday evening about nine, as I leaned on my open window, I was surprised to see a faint light coming towards my house through the dark alleys of the park, and from a direction which the servants at the château do not frequent. A moment afterward there was a knock at my door and Mlle. de Porhoët came in breathless.
"Cousin," she said, "I have business with you."
I looked straight at her.
"A misfortune?" I said.
"No, it is not precisely that. Besides, you shall judge for yourself. My dear child, you have passed two or three evenings this week at the château. Have you noticed nothing unusual, nothing peculiar, in the attitude of the ladies?"