the cramp that makes powerless, defying youth, strength, and skill. He
could not have spoken if it had been to save his own life--or hers.

Getting no answer to her words, Guida went first to the hearth and
stirred the fire, the old man sitting rigid in his chair and regarding
her with fixed, watchful eyes. Then she found two candles and lighted
them, placing them on the mantel, and turning to the crasset hanging by
its osier rings from a beam, slowly lighted it. Turning round, she was
full in the light of the candles and the shooting flames of the fire.

De Mauprat's eyes had followed her every motion, unconscious of his
presence as she was. This--this was not the Guida he had known! This
was not his grandchild, this woman with the pale, cold face, and dark,
unhappy eyes; this was not the laughing girl who but yesterday was a babe
at his knee. This was not--

The truth, which had yet been before his blinded eyes how long! burst
upon him. The shock of it snapped the filmy thread of being. As the
escaping soul found its wings, spread them, and rose from that dun morass
called Life, the Sieur de Mauprat, giving a long, deep sigh, fell back in
his great arm-chair dead, and the silver snuff-box rattled to the floor.

Guida turned round with a sharp cry. Running to him, she lifted up the
head that lay over on his shoulder. She felt his pulse, she called to
him. Opening his waistcoat, she put her ear to his heart; but it was
still--still.

A mist, a blackness, came over her own eyes, and without a cry or a word,
she slid to the floor unconscious, as the black thunderstorm broke upon
the Place du Vier Prison.