They shall see that it is not my fault.Is it not so, gentlemen? Do I not deserve pity? You will entreat Jacques to forgive me; for if driven by misery--finding no work--I was forced to this--not for the sake of any luxury--you see the rags I wear--but to get bread and shelter for my poor, sick sister--dying, and even more miserable than myself--would you not have pity upon me? Do you think one finds pleasure in one's infamy?"
cried the unfortunate, with a burst of frightful laughter; then she added, in a low voice, and with a shudder, "Oh, if you knew, Jacques! it is so infamous, so horrible, that I preferred death to falling so low a second time.I should have killed myself, had I not heard you were here." Then, seeing that Jacques did not answer her, but shook his head mournfully as he sank down though still supported by Ninny Moulin, Cephyse exclaimed, as she lifted her clasped hands towards him, "Jacques!
one word--for pity's sake--forgive me!"
"Gentlemen, pray remove this woman," cried Morok; "the sight of her causes my friend too painful emotions."
"Come, my dear child, be reasonable," said several of the guests, who, deeply moved by this scene, were endeavoring to withdraw Cephyse from it;
"leave him, and come with us; he is not in any danger."
"Gentlemen! oh, gentlemen!" cried the unfortunate creature, bursting into tears, and raising her hands in supplication; "listen to me--I will do all that you wish me--I will go--but, in heaven's name, send for help, and do not let him die thus.Look, what pain he suffers! what horrible convulsions!"
"She is right," said one of the guests, hastening towards the door; "we must send for a doctor."
"There is no doctor to be found," said another; "they are all too busy."
"We will do better than that," cried a third; "the Hospital is just opposite, and we can carry the poor fellow thither.They will give him instant help.A leaf of the table will make a litter, and the table-
cloth a covering."
"Yes, yes, that is it," said several voices; "let us carry him over at once."
Jacques, burnt up with brandy, and overcome by his interview with Cephyse, had again fallen into violent convulsions.It was the dying paroxysm of the unfortunate man.They were obliged to tie him with the ends of the cloth, so as to secure him to the leaf which was to serve for a litter, which two of the guests hastened to carry away.They yielded to the supplication of Cephyse, who asked, as a last favor, to accompany Jacques to the Hospital.When the mournful procession quitted the great room of the eating-house, there was a general flight among the guests.
Men and women made haste to wrap themselves in their cloaks, in order to conceal their costumes.The coaches, which had been ordered in tolerable number for the return of the masquerade, had luckily arrived.The defiance had been fully carried out, the audacious bravado accomplished, and they could now retire with the honors of war.Whilst a part of the guests were still in the room, an uproar, at first distant, but which soon drew nearer, broke out with incredible fury in the square of Notre-
Dame.
Jacques had been carried to the outer door of the tavern.Morok and Ninny Moulin, striving to open a passage through the crowd in the direction of the Hospital, preceded the litter.A violent reflux of the multitude soon forced them to stop, whilst a new storm of savage outcries burst from the other extremity of the square, near the angle of the church.
"What is it then?" asked Ninny Moulin of one of those ignoble figures that was leaping up before him."What are those cries?"
"They are making mince-meat of a poisoner, like him they have thrown into the river," replied the man."If you want to see the fun, follow me close," added he, "and peg away with your elbows, for fear you should be too late."
Hardly had the wretch pronounced these words than a dreadful shriek sounded above the roar of the crowd, through which the bearers of the litter, preceded by Morok, were with difficulty making their way.It was Cephyse who uttered that cry.Jacques (one of the seven heirs of the Rennepont family) had just expired in her arms! By a strange fatality, at the very moment that the despairing exclamation of Cephyse announced that death, another cry rose from that part of the square where they were attacking the poisoner.That distant, supplicating cry, tremulous with horrible alarm, like the last appeal of a man staggering beneath the blows of his murderers, chilled the soul of Morok in the midst of his execrable triumph.
"Damnation!" cried the skillful assassin, who had selected drunkenness and debauchery for his murderous but legal weapons; "it is the voice of the Abbe d'Aigrigny, whom they have in their clutches!"
