“I wish you would not speak of the other one, John. It is very disrespectful to a very charming young lady. There has never been any other one. You offend me when you talk so, by offending her. I have the greatest reverence for the ladies here--both----”
“You need not be so particular. She would not be offended. She knows very well that this marriage is _manqué_, and she is not inconsolable. But, look here: you must not go a step further till you know all particulars. I say, what is that? What an infernal row!” said Sir John.
The sound of the sudden cry affronting the silence, and even the fall that followed, ringing out into the great quiet with all the intensity of a sudden calamity, reached them both, though they were scarcely within sight of Père Goudron’s house. They rushed on without another word, Charley quickening his steps to a run, as they perceived where the tumult was. By this time dark figures were coming out into the street from the cottages near, and everything was in commotion. M. Goudron’s door stood wide open; the _persiennes_ had been thrown open also, and what seemed a flood of light poured out into the street. Charley rushed in, and Sir John followed. In the midst of a group of eager spectators a pale figure was lying on the bed. He had struck his forehead against something as he fell, and a drop or two of blood slowly congealing upon it showed the blow. His lips were open, hanging apart, dry and parched, his eyes half closed, and showing a dull, inexpressive light. The two Englishmen went forward, joining themselves to the group. The village doctor, half dressed, stood holding a mirror to the dry lips. Old Goudron, like a living skeleton, with a nervous quiver in his old bones, held a candle, like Time or Death himself assisting at the deathbed. In one corner Ursule was praying on her knees. Helen stood, pallid as the dead face itself, supporting the pillows on which he was propped, at the head of the bed.
Sir John was slow to take in the chief feature of the scene; he mastered everything else before he perceived that: the doctor, with the little mirror in his hand, upon which no stain of living breath was to be seen; the old bony figure by the bed; the young daughter, silent and distraught; then his eyes fixed themselves on the face of the man round whom they had all collected. His sudden shout shook the room. He cried out in astonishment, in consternation and horror. “My God! it is Goulburn himself!” Sir John said.