e theirs. You should always make your value felt. Their own
children will avenge me. Why, for their own sakes they should come to
me! Make them understand that they are laying up retribution for their
own deathbeds. All crimes are summed up in this one.... Go to them; just
tell them that if they stay away it will be parricide! There is enough
laid to their charge already without adding that to the list. Cry aloud
as I do now, 'Nasie! Delphine! here! Come to your father; the father who
has been so kind to you is lying ill!'--Not a sound; no one comes! Then
am I do die like a dog? This is to be my reward--I am forsaken at the
last. They are wicked, heartless women; curses on them, I loathe them.
I shall rise at night from my grave to curse them again; for, after all,
my friends, have I done wrong? They are behaving very badly to me, eh?
... What am I saying? Did you not tell me just now that Delphine is in
the room? She is more tender-hearted than her sister.... Eugene, you are
my son, you know. You will love her; be a father to her! Her sister is
very unhappy. And there are their fortunes! Ah, God! I am dying, this
anguish is almost more than I can bear! Cut off my head; leave me
nothing but my heart."

"Christophe!" shouted Eugene, alarmed by the way in which the old man
moaned, and by his cries, "go for M. Bianchon, and send a cab here for
me.--I am going to fetch them, dear father; I will bring them back to
you."

"Make them come! Compel them to come! Call out the Guard, the military,
anything and everything, but make them come!" He looked at Eugene, and a
last gleam of intelligence shone in his eyes. "Go to the authorities, to
the Public Prosecutor, let them bring them here; come they shall!"

"But you have cursed them."

"Who said that!" said the old man in dull amazement. "You know quite
well that I love them, I adore them! I shall be quite well again if I
can see them.... Go for them, my good neighbor, my dear boy, you are
kind-hearted; I wish I could repay you for your kindness, but I have
nothing to give you now, save the blessing of a dying man. Ah! if I
could only see Delphine, to tell her to pay my debt to you. If the other
cannot come, bring Delphine to me at any rate. Tell her that unless she
comes, you will not love her any more. She is so fond of you that she
will come to me then. Give me something to drink! There is a fire in my
bowels. Press something against my forehead! If my daughters would lay
t