'Alphonse,' said he at length, in a low voice to his defender, who was sitting in front of him, 'you have done what you could for me, and I thank you; but the moment has come: remember your promise.'
'It is not a decree of death!' replied the young advocate, turning deadly pale.
'It is the decree of a thousand deaths!' replied the condemned, with energy; 'would you have me go to the galleys? Remember your oath; you could not save my life—at least preserve my honor.'
He bent forward toward his friend; their hands met and interchanged a long and mysterious embrace. On resuming his position, Arthur saw, rising from the midst of the dense crowd, a lean and sinister figure, whose devouring eyes were fastened upon him with an expression of ferocious triumph. He replied to the fury of this look with the calm and disdainful smile of a man who rises superior to his fate.
'Monsieur Gorsay,' said he, in a firm tone, 'look at me well, that you may not forget me at your hour of death!'
With these words, Arthur applied to his breast the point of the dagger which his friend had just given him, and with a firm hand buried it in his heart. He remained for a moment upright, his eyes wide open and fixed upon the old man, whom their terrible fascination filled with involuntary dread, and then suddenly fell like a tree severed by the axe.
A cry of horror arose on all sides. 'Dead!' exclaimed Doctor Mallet, who was among the first to hasten to him. 'She mad, and he dead! My God! may Thy judgment be more merciful for them than that of men!'
'Dead! very dead indeed!' said Bonnemain, in his turn leaning over the body of the young man stretched at his feet. 'To stick himself in that fashion because he was sentenced for twenty years! What a fool!'