The old cripple, with one foot in the grave, whose whole feeble mind, whose pride, whose final flicker of hope was concentrated in his boy, must be told that the lad had been brought home dead.

“Will you tell him, Petronelle?” she asked repeatedly, during the brief intervals when the violence of the old nurse’s grief subsided somewhat.

“No—­no—­darling, I cannot—­I cannot—­” moaned Petronelle, amidst a renewed shower of sobs.

Juliette’s entire soul—­a child’s soul it was—­rose in revolt at thought of what was before her.  She felt angered with God for having put such a thing upon her.  What right had He to demand a girl of her years to endure so much mental agony?

To lose her brother, and to witness her fathers’s grief!  She couldn’t! she couldn’t! she couldn’t!  God was evil and unjust!

A distant tinkle of a bell made all her nerves suddenly quiver.  Her father was awake then?  He had heard the noise, and was ringing his bell to ask for an explanation of the disturbance.

With one quick movement Juliette jerked herself free from the nurse’s arms, and before Petronelle could prevent her, she had run out of the room, straight across the dark landing to a large panelled door opposite.

The old Duc de Marny was sitting on the edge of his bed, with his long, thin legs dangling helplessly to the ground.

Crippled as he was, he had struggled to this upright position, he was making frantic, miserable efforts to raise himself still further.  He, too, had heard the dull thud of feet, the shuffling gait of men when carrying a heavy burden.

His mind flew back half-a-century, to the days when he had witnessed scenes wherein he was then merely a half-interested spectator.  He knew the cortege composed of valets and friends, with the leech walking beside that precious burden, which anon would be deposited on the bed and left to the tender care of a mourning family.

Who knows what pictures were conjured up before that enfeebled vision?  But he guessed.  And when Juliette dashed into his room and stood before him, pale, trembling, a world of misery in her great eyes, she knew that he guessed and that she need not tell him.  God had already done that for her.

Pierre, the old Duc’s devoted valet, dressed him as quickly as he could.  M. le Duc insisted on having his habit de ceremonie, the rich suit of black velvet with the priceless lace and diamond buttons, which he had worn when they laid le Roi Soleil to his eternal rest.

He put on his orders and buckled on his sword.  The gorgeous clothes, which had suited him so well in the prime of his manhood, hung somewhat loosely on his attenuated frame, but he looked a grand and imposing figure, with his white hair tied behind with a great black bow, and the fine jabot of beautiful point d’Angleterre falling in a soft cascade below his chin.

Then holding himself as upright as he could, he sat in his invalid chair, and four flunkeys in full livery carried him to the deathbed of his son.