In this magnificent park—­across these beautiful gardens, with great vases of marble—­under long arcades of verdure peopled with more statues-both wandered separately, like two sad shadows, meeting sometimes but never speaking.

One day, near the end of September, Camors did not descend from his apartment.  Daniel told the Marquise he had given orders to let no one enter.

“Not even me?” she said.  He bent his head mournfully.  She insisted.

“Madame, I should lose my place!”

The Count persisted in this mania of absolute seclusion.  She was compelled from this moment to content herself with the news she obtained from his servant.  M. de Camors was not bedridden.  He passed his time in a sad reverie, lying on his divan.  He got up at intervals, wrote a few lines, then lay down again.  His weakness appeared great, though he did not complain of any suffering.

After two or three weeks, the Marquise read in the features of Daniel a more marked disquietude than usual.  He supplicated her to call in the country physician who had once before seen him.  It was so decided.  The unfortunate woman, when the physician was shown into the Count’s apartment, leaned against the door listening in agony.  She thought she heard the voice of Camors loudly raised, then the noise ceased.

The doctor, when departing, simply said to her:  “Madame, his sad case appears to me serious—­but not hopeless.  I did not wish to press him to-day, but he allows me to return tomorrow.”

In the night which followed, at two o’clock, Madame de Campvallon heard some one calling her, and recognized the voice of Daniel.  She rose immediately, threw a mantle around her, and admitted him.

“Madame,” he said, “Monsieur le Comte asks for you,” and burst into tears.

“Mon Dieu! what is the matter?”

“Come, Madame—­you must hasten!”

She accompanied him immediately.  From the moment she put her foot in the chamber, she could not deceive herself—­Death was there.  Crushed by sorrow, this existence, so full, so proud, so powerful, was about to terminate.  The head of Camors, turned on the pillow, seemed already to have assumed a death-like immobility.  His beautiful features, sharpened by suffering, took the rigid outline of sculpture; his eye alone yet lived and looked at her.

She approached him hastily and wished to seize the hand resting on the sheet.

He withdrew it.  She gave a despairing groan.  He continued to look fixedly at her.  She thought he was trying to speak, but could not; but his eyes spoke.  They addressed to her some request, at the same time with an imperious though supplicating expression, which she doubtless understood; for she said aloud, with an accent full of sadness and tenderness: 

“I promise it to you.”

He appeared to make a painful effort, and his look indicated a large sealed letter lying on the bed.  She took it, and read on the envelope-"To my son.”