"
"The count was stricken with apoplexy in a cab. He went out about
five o'clock, on foot, and a little before seven he was brought
home unconscious. Where he had been we don't know."
"You don't know? you don't know?"
"Alas! no; and he was only able to utter a few incoherent words
before he died." Thereupon the poor girl began a brief account of
what had taken place during the last four-and-twenty hours. Had
she been less absorbed in her narrative she would have noticed
that the General was not listening to her. He was sitting at the
count's desk and was toying with the letters which Madame Leon had
brought into the room a short time previously. One of them
especially seemed to attract his attention, to exercise a sort of
fascination over him as it were. He looked at it with hungry
eyes, and whenever he touched it, his hand trembled, or
involuntarily clinched. His face, moreover, had become livid; his
eyes twitched nervously; he seemed to have a difficulty in
breathing, and big drops of perspiration trickled down his
forehead. If the magistrate were able to see the General's face,
he must certainly have been of opinion that a terrible conflict
was raging in his mind. The struggle lasted indeed for fully five
minutes, and then suddenly, certain that no one saw him, he caught
up the letter in question and slipped it into his pocket.
Poor Marguerite was now finishing her story: "You see, monsieur,
that, far from being an heiress, as you suppose, I am homeless and
penniless," she said.
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