"You have only forgotten one thing, Sauvresy; that a man can die.""Pardon me," replied the sick man, coldly."I have foreseen that also, and was just going to tell you so.Should one of you die suddenly before the marriage, the police will be called in.""You misunderstood me; I meant that a man can kill himself.""You kill yourself? Humph! Jenny, who disdains you almost as much as I do, has told me about your threats to kill yourself.You!
See here; here is my revolver; shoot yourself, and I will forgive my wife!"Hector made a gesture of anger, but did not take the pistol.
"You see," said Sauvresy, "I knew it well.You are afraid."Turning to Bertha, he added, "This is your lover."Extraordinary situations like this are so unwonted and strange that the actors in them almost always remain composed and natural, as if stupefied.Bertha, Hector, and Sauvresy accepted, without taking note of it, the strange position in which they found themselves; and they talked naturally, as if of matters of every-day life, and not of terrible events.But the hours flew, and Sauvresy perceived his life to be ebbing from him.
"There only remains one more act to play," said he."Hector, go and call the servants, have those who have gone to bed aroused, Iwant to see them before dying."
Tremorel hesitated.
"Come, go along; or shall I ring, or fire a pistol to bring them here?"Hector went out; Bertha remained alone with her husband - alone!
She had a hope that perhaps she might succeed in making him change his purpose, and that she might obtain his forgiveness.She knelt beside the bed.Never had she been so beautiful, so seductive, so irresistible.The keen emotions of the evening had brought her whole soul into her face, and her lovely eyes supplicated, her breast heaved, her mouth was held out as if for a kiss, and her new-born passion for Sauvresy burst out into delirium.
"Clement," she stammered, in a voice full of tenderness, "my husband, Clement!"He directed toward her a glance of hatred.
"What do you wish?"
She did not know how to begin - she hesitated, trembled and sobbed.
"Hector would not kill himself," said she, "but I - ""Well, what do you wish to say? Speak!"
"It was I, a wretch, who have killed you.I will not survive you."An inexpressible anguish distorted Sauvresy's features.She kill herself! If so, his vengeance was vain; his own death would then appear only ridiculous and absurd.And he knew that Bertha would not be wanting in courage at the critical moment.
She waited, while he reflected.
"You are free," said he, at last, "this would merely be a sacrifice to Hector.If you died, he would marry Laurence Courtois, and in a year would forget even our name."Bertha sprang to her feet; she pictured Hector to herself married and happy.A triumphant smile, like a sun's ray, brightened Sauvresy's pale face.He had touched the right chord.He might sleep in peace as to his vengeance.Bertha would live.He knew how hateful to each other were these enemies whom he left linked together.
The servants came in one by one; nearly all of them had been long in Sauvresy's service, and they loved him as a good master.They wept and groaned to see him lying there so pale and haggard, with the stamp of death already on his forehead.Sauvresy spoke to them in a feeble voice, which was occasionally interrupted by distressing hiccoughs.He thanked them, he said, for their attachment and fidelity, and wished to apprise them that he had left each of them a goodly sum in his will.Then turning to Bertha and Hector, he resumed:
"You have witnessed, my people, the care and solicitude with which my bedside has been surrounded by this incomparable friend and my adored Bertha.You have seen their devotion.Alas, I know how keen their sorrow will be! But if they wish to soothe my last moments and give me a happy death, they will assent to the prayer which I earnestly make, to them, and will swear to espouse each other after I am gone.Oh, my beloved friends, this seems cruel to you now; but you know not how all human pain is dulled in me.
You are young, life has yet much happiness in store for you.Iconjure you yield to a dying man's entreaties!"They approached the bed, and Sauvresy put Bertha's hand into Hector's.
"Do you swear to obey me?" asked he.
They shuddered to hold each other's hands, and seemed near fainting; but they answered, and were heard to murmur:
"We swear it."
The servants retired, grieved at this distressing scene, and Bertha muttered:
Oh, 'tis infamous, 'tis horrible!"
"Infamous - yes," returned Sauvresy, "but not more so than your caresses, Bertha, or than your hand-pressures, Hector; not more horrible than your plans, than your hopes - "His voice sank into a rattle.Soon the agony commenced.Horrible convulsions distorted his limbs; twice or thrice he cried out:
"I am cold; I am cold!"
His body was indeed stiff, and nothing could warm it.
Despair filled the house, for a death so sudden was not looked for.
The domestics came and went, whispering to each other, "He is going, poor monsieur; poor madame!"Soon the convulsions ceased.He lay extended on his back, breathing so feebly that twice they thought his breath had ceased forever.At last, a little before ten o'clock, his cheeks suddenly colored and he shuddered.He rose, up in bed, his eye staring, his arm stretched out toward the window, and he cried:
"There-behind the curtain - I see them - I see them!"A last convulsion stretched him again on his pillow.
Clement Sauvresy was dead!
