LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter XX

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      Time passed. Hector and Bertha repaired to Sauvresy’s room; he was asleep. They noiselessly took chairs beside the fire, as usual, and the maid retired. In order that the sick man might not be disturbed by the light of the lamp, curtains had been hung so that, when lying down, he could not see the fireplace and mantel. In order to see these, he must have raised himself on his pillow and leaned forward on his right arm. But now he was asleep, breathing painfully, feverish, and shuddering convulsively. Bertha and Hector did not speak; the solemn and sinister silence was only broken by the ticking of the clock, or by the leaves of the book which Hector was reading. Ten o’clock struck; soon after Sauvresy moved, turned over, and awoke. Bertha was at his side in an instant; she saw that his eyes were open.

      “Do you feel a little better, dear Clement?” she asked.

      “Neither better nor worse.”

      “Do you want anything?”

      “I am thirsty.”

      Hector, who had raised his eyes when his friend spoke, suddenly resumed his reading.

      Bertha, standing by the mantel, began to prepare with great care Dr. R——’s last prescription; when it was ready, she took out the fatal little vial as usual, and thrust one of her hair-pins into it.

      She had not time to draw it out before she felt a light touch upon her shoulder. A shudder shook her from head to foot; she suddenly turned and uttered a loud scream, a cry of terror and horror.

      “Oh!”

      The hand which had touched her was her husband’s. While she was busied with the poison at the mantel, Sauvresy had softly raised himself; more softly still, he had pulled the curtain aside, and had stretched out his arm and touched her. His eyes glittered with hate and anger.

      Bertha’s cry was answered by another dull cry, or rather groan; Tremorel had seen and comprehended all; he was overwhelmed.

      “All is discovered!” Their eyes spoke these three words to each other. They saw them everywhere, written in letters of fire. There was a moment of stupor, of silence so profound that Hector heard his temples beat. Sauvresy had got back under the bed-clothes again. He laughed loudly, wildly, just as a skeleton might have laughed whose jaws and teeth rattled together.

      But Bertha was not one of those persons who are overcome by a single blow, terrible as it might be. She trembled like a leaf; her legs staggered; but her mind was already at work seeking a subterfuge. What had Sauvresy seen—anything? What did he know? For even had he seen the vial, this might be explained. It could only have been by simple chance that he had touched her at the moment when she was using the poison. All these thoughts flashed across her mind in a moment, as rapid as lightning shooting between the clouds. And then she dared to approach the bed, and, with a frightfully constrained smile, to say:

      “How you frightened me then!”

      He looked at her a moment, which seemed to her an age—and simply replied:

      “I understand it.”

      There was no longer any uncertainty. Bertha saw only too well in her husband’s eyes that he knew something. But what—how much? She nerved herself to go on:

      “Are you still suffering?”

      “No.”

      “Then why did you get up?”

      He raised himself upon his pillow, and with a sudden strength, he continued:

      “I got up to tell you that I have had enough of these tortures, that I have reached the limits of human energy, that I cannot endure one day longer the agony of seeing myself put to death slowly, drop by drop, by the hands of my wife and my best friend!”

      He stopped. Hector and Bertha were thunderstruck. “I wanted to tell you also, that I have had enough of your cruel caution, and that I suffer. Ah, don’t you see that I suffer horribly? Hurry, cut short my agony! Kill me, and kill me at a blow—poisoners!”

      At the last word, the Count de Tremorel sprang up as if he had moved by a spring, his eyes haggard, his arms stretched out. Sauvresy, seeing this, quickly slipped his hand under the pillow, pulled out a revolver, and pointed the barrel at Hector, crying out:

      “Don’t advance a step!”

      He thought that Tremorel, seeing that they were discovered, was going to rush upon him and strangle him; but he was mistaken. It seemed to Hector as though he were losing his mind. He fell down as heavily as if he were a log. Bertha was more self-possessed; she tried to resist the torpor of terror which she felt coming on.

      “You are worse, my Clement,” said she. “This is that dreadful fever which frightens me so. Delirium—”

      “Have I really been delirious?” interrupted he, with a surprised air.

      “Alas, yes, dear, that is what haunts you, and fills your poor sick head with horrid visions.”

      He looked at her curiously. He was really stupefied by this boldness, which constantly grew more bold.

      “What! you think that we, who are so dear to you, your friends, I, your—”

      Her husband’s implacable look forced her to stop, and the words expired on her lips.

      “Enough of these lies, Bertha,” resumed Sauvresy, “they are useless. No, I have not been dreaming, nor have I been delirious. The poison is only too real, and I could tell you what it is without your taking it out of your pocket.”

      She recoiled as if she had seen her husband’s hand stretched out to snatch the blue vial.

      “I guessed it and recognized it at the very first; for you have chosen one of those poisons which, it is true, leave scarcely any trace of themselves, but the symptoms of which are not deceptive. Do you remember the day when I complained of a morbid taste for pepper? The next day I was certain of it, and I was not the only one. Doctor R——, too, had a suspicion.”

      Bertha tried to stammer something; her husband interrupted her.

      “People ought to try their poisons,” pursued he, in an ironical tone, “before they use them. Didn’t you understand yours, or what its effects were? Why, your poison gives intolerable neuralgia, sleeplessness, and you saw me without surprise, sleeping soundly all night long! I complained of a devouring fire within me, while your poison freezes the blood and the entrails, and yet you are not astonished. You see all the symptoms change and disappear, and that does not enlighten you. You are fools, then. Now see what I had to do to divert Doctor R——’s suspicions. I hid the real pains which your poison caused, and complained of imaginary, ridiculous ones. I described sensations just the opposite of those which I felt. You were lost, then—and I saved you.”

      Bertha’s malignant energy staggered beneath so many successive blows. She wondered whether she were not going mad; had she heard aright? Was it really true that her husband

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