Although he scarcely knew the Angelins, he pressed them also in his arms.  “Ah! my poor friends, what a terrible blow!  What a terrible blow!”

Then Blaise in his turn came to kiss his parents.  In spite of his grief, and the horrible night he had spent, his face retained its youthful freshness.  Yet tears coursed down his cheeks, for, working with Maurice day by day, he had conceived real friendship for him.

The silence fell again.  Morange, as if unconscious of what went on around him, as if he were quite alone there, continued walking softly hither and thither like a somnambulist.  Beauchene, with haggard mien, went off, and then came back carrying some little address-books.  He turned about for another moment, and finally sat down at a writing-table which had been brought out of Maurice’s room.  Little accustomed as he was to grief, he instinctively sought to divert his mind, and began searching in the little address-books for the purpose of drawing up a list of the persons who must be invited to the funeral.  But his eyes became blurred, and with a gesture he summoned Blaise, who, after going into the bedchamber to glance at his wife’s sketch, was now returning to the drawing-room.  Thereupon the young man, standing erect beside the writing-table, began to dictate the names in a low voice; and then, amid the deep silence sounded a low and monotonous murmur.

The minutes slowly went by.  The visitors were still waiting for Constance.  At last a little door of the death-chamber slowly opened, and she entered that chamber noiselessly, without anybody knowing that she was there.  She looked like a spectre emerging out of the darkness into the pale light of the tapers.  She had not yet wept; her face was livid, contracted, hardened by cold rage.  Her little figure, instead of bending, seemed to have grown taller beneath the injustice of destiny, as if borne up by furious rebellion.  Yet her loss did not surprise her.  She had immediately felt that she had expected it, although but a minute before the death she had stubbornly refused to believe it possible.  But the thought of it had remained latent within her for long months, and frightful evidence thereof now burst forth.  She suddenly heard the whispers of the unknown once more, and understood them; she knew the meaning of those shivers which had chilled her, those vague, terror-fraught regrets at having no other child!  And that which had been threatening her had come; irreparable destiny had willed it that her only son, the salvation of the imperilled home, the prince of to-morrow, who was to share his empire with her, should be swept away like a withered leaf.  It was utter downfall; she sank into an abyss.  And she remained tearless; fury dried her tears within her.  Yet, good mother that she had always been, she suffered all the torment of motherliness exasperated, poisoned by the loss of her child.