The impression produced upon Jean and the abbe was so terrible, that, in spite of their efforts, it showed itself in their faces; and Maurice remarked their agitation.

“What is the matter?” he inquired, in evident surprise.

They trembled, hung their heads, but did not say a word.

The unfortunate man’s astonishment changed to a vague, inexpressible fear.

He enumerated all the misfortunes which could possibly have befallen him.

“What has happened?” he asked, in a stifled voice.  “My father is safe, is he not?  You said that my mother would desire nothing, if I were with her again.  Is it Marie-Anne——­”

He hesitated.

“Courage, Maurice,” murmured the abbe.  “Courage!”

The stricken man tottered as if about to fall; his face grew whiter than the plastered wall against which he leaned for support.

“Marie-Anne is dead!” he exclaimed.

Jean and the abbe were silent.

“Dead!” Maurice repeated—­“and no secret voice warned me!  Dead! when?”

“She died only last night,” replied Jean.

Maurice rose.

“Last night?” said he.  “In that case, then, she is still here.  Where? upstairs?”

And without waiting for any response, he darted toward the staircase so quickly that neither Jean nor the abbe had time to intercept him.

With three bounds he reached the chamber; he walked straight to the bed, and with a firm hand turned back the sheet that hid the face of the dead.

He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.

Was this indeed the beautiful, the radiant Marie-Anne, whom he had loved to his own undoing!  He did not recognize her.

He could not recognize these distorted features, this face swollen and discolored by poison, these eyes which were almost concealed by the purple swelling around them.

When Jean and the priest entered the room they found him standing with head thrown back, eyes dilated with terror, and rigid arm extended toward the corpse.

“Maurice,” said the priest, gently, “be calm.  Courage!”

He turned with an expression of complete bewilderment upon his features.

“Yes,” he faltered, “that is what I need—­courage!”

He staggered; they were obliged to support him to an arm-chair.

“Be a man,” continued the priest; “where is your energy?  To live, is to suffer.”

He listened, but did not seem to comprehend.

“Live!” he murmured, “why should I desire to live since she is dead?”

The dread light of insanity glittered in his dry eyes.  The abbe was alarmed.

“If he does not weep, he will lose his reason!” he thought.

And in an imperious voice, he said: 

“You have no right to despair thus; you owe a sacred duty to your child.”

He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.

The recollection which had given Marie-Anne strength to hold death at bay for a moment, saved Maurice from the dangerous torpor into which he was sinking.  He trembled as if he had received an electric shock, and springing from his chair: