The sacrifice was accomplished. When they had gone, Eve sighed, prayed, and felt herself weaker. She had expended in this interview the little strength which remained to her.
A despairing cry soon resounded through the house where the young girl's inexhaustible goodness had won all hearts.
"Mademoiselle is dying! Mademoiselle is going to die!"
The Marquis de La Tour-d'Adam, fulfilling his promise, went to add a disposition to his will, in case the heiress should not attain her majority. The pen fell from his hand, the chill of death ran through his veins:
"Eve! Eve! who will take me to her?"
But Eve entered the room, for she, on her side, had prayed the governess to have her conducted there.
The old man saw on her features the certain mark of death, and death struck him. He murmured for the last time the name of Eve, then fell back, cold, in his arm-chair.
However, Eve lived an entire day after her grandfather.
Her agony was slow and gentle. She asked for jasmine, her couch was covered with white flowers, bathed in her tears whose filial love had made them.