“There only remains one more act to play,” said he.  “Hector, go and call the servants, have those who have gone to bed aroused, I want 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.  I conjure you yield to a dying man’s entreaties!”