“If he lives this night, he may be saved.”
At daybreak he had expired.
Well, the old gentleman had hardly suffered more during that fatal night
than he did this night, during which Dionysia was away from the house.
He knew very well that Blangin and his wife were honest people, in
spite of their avarice and their covetousness; he knew that Jacques de
Boiscoran was an honourable man.
But still, during the whole night, his old servant heard him walk up and
down his room; and at seven o’clock in the morning he was at the door,
looking anxiously up and down the street. Towards half-past seven, M.
Folgat came up; but he hardly wished him good-morning, and he certainly
did not hear a word of what the lawyer told him to reassure him. At
last, however, the old man cried,--
“Ah, there she is!”
He was not mistaken. Dionysia was coming round the corner. She came up
to the house in feverish haste, as if she had known that her strength
was at an end, and would barely suffice to carry her to the door.
Grandpapa Chandore met her with a kind of fierce joy, pressed her in his
arms, and said over and over again,--
“O Dionysia! Oh, my darling child, how I have suffered! How long you
have been! But it is all over now. Come, come, come!”
And he almost carried her into the parlor, and put her down tenderly
into a large easy-chair. He knelt down by her, smiling with happiness;
but, when he had taken her hands in his, he said,--
“Your hands are burning. You have a fever!”
He looked at her: she had raised her veil.
“You are pale as death!” he went on. “Your eyes are red and swollen!”
“I have cried, dear papa,” she replied gently.
“Cried! Why?”
“Alas, I have failed!”