without knowing the reason for it, with the task of watching you. Mark well what I say—if either of you should disappear for eight days, on the ninth, the man who has the package would receive a letter which would cause him to resort at once to the police.”
Yes, he had foreseen all, and Tremorel, who had already thought of flight, was overwhelmed.
“I have so arranged, besides, that the idea of flight shall not tempt you too much. It is true I have left all my fortune to Bertha, but I only give her the use of it; the property itself will not be hers until the day after your marriage.”
Bertha made a gesture of repugnance which her husband misinterpreted.
“You are thinking of the copy of my will which is in your possession. It is a useless one, and I only added to it some valueless words because I wanted to put your suspicions to sleep. My true will is in the notary’s hands, and bears a date two days later. I can read you the rough draft of it.”
He took a sheet of paper from a portfolio which was concealed; like the revolver, under the bolster, and read:
“Being stricken with a fatal malady, I here set down freely, and in the fulness of my faculties, my last wishes:
“My dearest wish is that my well-beloved widow, Bertha, should espouse, as soon as the delay enjoined by law has expired, my dear friend, the Count Hector de Tremorel. Having appreciated the grandeur of soul and nobleness of sentiment which belong to my wife and friend, I know that they are worthy of each other, and that each will be happy in the other. I die the more peacefully, as I leave my Bertha to a protector whose—”
It was impossible for Bertha to hear more.
“For pity’s sake,” cried she, “enough.”
“Enough? Well, let it be so,” responded Sauvresy. “I have read this paper to you to show you that while I have arranged everything to insure the execution of my will; I have also done all that can preserve to you the world’s respect. Yes, I wish that you should be esteemed and honored, for it is you alone upon whom I rely for my vengeance. I have knit around you a net-work which you can never burst asunder. You triumph; my tombstone shall be, as you hoped, the altar of your nuptials, or else—the galleys.”
Tremorel’s pride at last revolted against so many humiliations, so many whip-strokes lashing his face.
“You have only forgotten one thing, Sauvresy; that a man can die.”
“Pardon me,” replied the sick man, coldly. “I have foreseen that also, and was just going to tell you so. Should one of you die suddenly before the marriage, the police will be called in.”
“You misunderstood me; I meant that a man can kill himself.”
“You kill yourself? Humph! Jenny, who disdains you almost as much as I do, has told me about your threats to kill yourself. You! See here; here is my revolver; shoot yourself, and I will forgive my wife!”
Hector made a gesture of anger, but did not take the pistol.
“You see,” said Sauvresy, “I knew it well. You are afraid.” Turning to Bertha, he added, “This is your lover.”
Extraordinary situations like this are so unwonted and strange that the actors in them almost always remain composed and natural, as if stupefied. Bertha, Hector, and Sauvresy accepted, without taking note of it, the strange position in which they found themselves; and they talked naturally, as if of matters of every-day life, and not of terrible events. But the hours flew, and Sauvresy perceived his life to be ebbing from him.
“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!”
They approached the bed, and Sauvresy put Bertha’s hand into Hector’s.
“Do you swear to obey me?” asked he.
They shuddered to hold each other’s hands, and seemed near fainting; but they answered, and were heard to murmur:
“We swear it.”
The servants retired, grieved at this distressing scene, and Bertha muttered:
“Oh,
