"Retire--why?"
He did not reply by words, but pointed to the bed on which the
body was lying, and the poor girl realized that the moment of
eternal separation had come. She rose, and dragged herself to the
bedside. Death had now effaced all traces of the count's last
agony. His face wore its accustomed expression again, and it
might have been fancied that he was asleep. For a long time
Mademoiselle Marguerite stood looking at him, as if to engrave the
features she would never behold again upon her memory.
"Mademoiselle," insisted M. Casimir; "mademoiselle, do not remain
here."
She heard him, and summoning all her strength, she leaned over the
bed, kissed M. de Chalusse, and went away. But she was too late,
for in passing through the hall she encountered the undertakers,
who carried on their shoulders a long metallic case enclosed in
two oaken ones. And she had scarcely reached her own room before
a smell of resin told her that the men were closing the coffin
which contained all that was mortal of M. de Chalusse, her father.
So, none of those terrible details, which so increase one's grief,
were spared her. But she had already suffered so much that she
had reached a state of gloomy apathy, almost insensibility; and
the exercise of her faculties was virtually suspended. Whiter
than marble, she fell, rather than seated herself, on a chair,
scarcely perceiving Madame Leon, who had followed her.
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