CHAPTER XXI

"WHEN ROGUES FALL OUT"

The night seemed long to Madame Desvarennes. Agitated and feverish, she
listened through the silence, expecting every moment to hear some fearful
news. In fancy she saw Cayrol entering his wife's room like a madman,
unawares. She seemed to hear a cry of rage, answered by a sigh of
terror; then a double shot resounded, the room filled with smoke, and,
struck down in their guilty love, Serge and Jeanne rolled in death,
interlaced in each other's arms, like Paolo and Francesca de Rimini,
those sad lovers of whom Dante tells us.

Hour after hour passed; not a sound disturbed the mansion. The Prince
had not come in. Madame Desvarennes, unable to lie in bed, arose, and
now and again, to pass the time, stole on tiptoe to her daughter's room.
Micheline, thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and emotion, had fallen
asleep on her pillow, which was wet with tears.

Bending over her, by the light of the lamp, the mistress gazed at
Micheline's pale face, and a sigh rose to her lips.

"She is still young," she thought; "she may begin life afresh. The
remembrance of these sad days will be wiped out, and I shall see her
revive and smile again. That wretch was nearly the death of her."

And the image of Serge and Jeanne stretched beside each other in the room