On the following morning his children saluted him with deepest and most
lingering love, knowing that the last hour was at hand. His face did not
light; he made none of his usual responses to their tender affection.
Pierquin signalled to Emmanuel, and he broke the wrapper of the
newspaper, and was about to read aloud in order to distract Claes, when
his eyes were arrested by the heading:

DISCOVERY OF THE ABSOLUTE

In a low voice he read the intelligence to his wife. It narrated that a
famous mathematician in Poland had made terms for selling the secret of
the Absolute, which he had discovered. As Emmanuel ceased to read,
Marguerite asked for the paper; but Claes had heard the almost whispered
words.

Of a sudden the dying man lifted himself up on his elbows. To his
frightened family his glance was like the flash of lightning. The fringe
of hair above his forehead stood up; every line in his countenance
quivered with excitement, a thrill of passion moved across his face and
made it sublime.

He lifted a hand, which was clenched with excitement, and uttering the
cry of Archimedes--"Eureka!"--fell back with the heaviness of a dead
body, and expired with an agonised groan. His eyes, till the doctor
closed them, expressed a frenzied despair. It was his agony that he
could not bequeath to science the solution of the great riddle which was
only revealed to him as the veil was rent asunder by the hand of Death.

* * * * *