ied expression.

"You women are wonderfully fastidious," said the Baron, as he noticed
this movement; "you delight in causing a murder, but the slightest
scratch frightens you. Pass over to the left side; you will not see so
much blood-besides, it is the side where the heart is."

There was something terrible in the irony of the voice in which he spoke
at this moment. Clemence fell upon her knees beside him and took his
hand, crying,

"Pardon! pardon!"

The dying man took away his hand, raised his wife's head, and, looking at
her a few moments attentively, he said at last:

"Your eyes are very dry. No tears! What! not one tear when you see me
thus!"

"I can not weep," replied she; "I shall die!"

"It is very humiliating for me to be so poorly regretted, and it does you
little honor--try to shed a few tears, Madame--it will be remarked--a
widow who does not weep!"

"A widow--never!" she said, with energy.

"It would be convenient if they sold tears as they sell crape, would it
not? Ah! only you women have a real talent for that--all women know how
to weep."

"You will not die, Christian--oh! tell me that you will not die--and that
you will forgive me."

"Your lover has killed me," said Bergenheim, slowly; "I have a bullet in
my chest--I feel it--I am the one who is to die--in less than an hour I
shall be a corpse--don't you see how hard it is already for me to talk?"

In reality his voice was becoming weaker and weaker. His breath grew
shorter with each word; a wheezing sound within his chest indicated the
extent of the lesion and the continued extravasation of blood.

"Mercy! pardon!" exclaimed the unhappy woman, prostrating herself upon
the floor.

"More air--open the windows--" said the Baron, as he fell back upon the
mattress, exhausted by the efforts he had just made to talk.

Madame de Bergenheim obeyed his order with the precision of an automaton.
A fresh, pure breeze entered the room; when the curtains were raised,
floods of light illuminated the floor, and the old portraits, suddenly
lighted up, looked like ghosts who had left their graves to witness the
death agonies of the last of their descendants. Christian, refreshed by
the air which swept over his face, sat up again. He gazed with a
melancholy eye at the radiant sun and the green woods which lay stretched
out in front of the chateau.

"I lost my father on such a day as this," said he, as if talking to
himself--"all our family die durin