“Oh,” exclaimed Morrel, “why do they not come? Is anyone ill in the house?” The eyes of Noirtier seemed as though they would start from their sockets. “What is the matter? You alarm me. Valentine? Valentine?”
“Yes, yes,” signed Noirtier.
Maximilian tried to speak, but he could articulate nothing; he staggered, and supported himself against the wainscot. Then he pointed to the door.
“Yes, yes, yes!” continued the old man.
Maximilian rushed up the little staircase, while Noirtier’s eyes seemed to say,—“Quicker, quicker!”
In a minute the young man darted through several rooms, till at length he reached Valentine’s.
There was no occasion to push the door, it was wide open. A sob was the only sound he heard. He saw as though in a mist, a black figure kneeling and buried in a confused mass of white drapery. A terrible fear transfixed him. It was then he heard a voice exclaim “Valentine is dead!” and another voice which, like an echo repeated:
“Dead,—dead!”
Chapter 103. Maximilian
Villefort rose, half-ashamed of being surprised in such a paroxysm of grief. The terrible office he had held for twenty-five years had succeeded in making him more or less than man. His glance, at first wandering, fixed itself upon Morrel. “Who are you, sir,” he asked, “that forget that this is not the manner to enter a house stricken with death? Go, sir, go!”
But Morrel remained motionless; he could not detach his eyes from that disordered bed, and the pale corpse of the young girl who was lying on it.