"Charrebourg! Visconte! Charrebourg!"
No answer—There was a silence—then another swelling howl.
"Psha!—it is that cursed old cur. I had forgotten him. Jonquil, Jonquil! come here, boy."
The old dog came scrambling along, and looking up into Le Prun's face, yelped strangely.
"What!—hungry? They have forgotten you, I dare say. What! not a scrap, not a bone! But where is your master?"
Le Prun entered the inner room, and the dog, preceding him, ran behind the fauteuil that stood at the table; and then running a step or two towards Le Prun, raised a howl that made him jump.
"Hey! what's the matter? But, sacre! there is something—what is this?"
There was a candle burning on the table, and writing materials. The Visconte de Charrebourg, who had evidently been writing, had fallen forward upon the table—dead. Le Prun touched him, he was quite cold. He raised the tall lank figure as well as he could, so that it leaned back in the chair; a little blood came from the corner of the mouth, the eyes were glazed, but the features wore, even in death, a character of sternness and dignity. He had fallen forward upon the fingers that held the pen, and the hand came stiffly back along with the body, still holding the pen in the attitude in which the chill of death had stiffened them. In this attitude he looked as if he only awaited a phrase or a thought of which he was in search to resume his writing.
"Dead—dead—a long time dead! how the devil has all this happened?"
And he looked for a moment at the old hound that was sniffing and whimpering in his master's ears, as if he could answer him. Poor Jonquil! he has shared his master's fortune fairly—the better and the worse; for years his humble comrade in the sylvan solitudes of Charrebourg, and here the solitary witness of his parting moment. Who can say with what more than human grief that dumb heart is swelling! He will not outlive his old friend many days—Jonquil is past the age for making new ones.