her
orders me to marry Claire de Voincourt, must I in that case obey him?"

At this last blow Angelique tottered. Was no torture to be spared her?
She could not restrain this heartbroken cry:

"Oh! that is too much! My sufferings are greater than I can bear. I
beseech you go away quickly and do not be so cruel. Why did you come at
all? I was resigned. I had learned to accept the misfortune of being
no longer loved by you. Yet the moment that I am reassured of your
affection, all my martyrdom recommences; and how can you expect me to
live now?"

Felicien, not aware of the depth of her despair, and thinking that she
had yielded simply to a momentary feeling, repeated his question:

"If my father wishes me to marry her----"

She struggled heroically against her intense suffering; she succeeded
in standing up, notwithstanding that her heart was crushed, and dragging
herself slowly towards the table, as if to make room for him to pass
her, she said:

"Marry her, for it is always necessary to obey."

In his turn he was now before the window, ready to take his departure,
because she had sent him away from her.

"But it will make you die if I do so."

She had regained her calmness, and, smiling sadly, she replied:

"Oh! that work is nearly done already."

For one moment more he looked at her, so pale, so thin, so wan; light
as a feather, to be carried away by the faintest breath. Then, with a
brusque movement of furious resolution, he disappeared in the night.

When he was no longer there, Angelique, leaning against the back of her
armchair, stretched her hands out in agony towards the darkness, and her
frail body was shaken by heavy sobs, and cold perspiration came out upon
her face and neck.

"My God!" This, then, was the end, and she would never see him again.
All her weakness and pain had come back to her. Her exhausted limbs no
longer supported her. It was with great difficulty that she could regain
her bed, upon which she fell helpless, but calm in spirit from the
assurance that she had done right.

The next morning they found her there, dying. The lamp had just gone out
of itself, at the dawn of day, and everything in the chamber was of a
triumphal whiteness.

CHAPTER XVI

Angelique was dying.

It was ten o'clock one cold morning towards the end of the winter, the
air was sharp, and the clear heavens were brightened up by the
beautiful sunshine. In her great royal bed, draped with its old, faded