Frederick was not less shocked by the sudden appearance of Bastien, and, seeing his mother fall dead as it were on the floor, fell fainting in the arms of Doctor Dufour.
The poor boy was not borne to his own chamber, but to the library, and a bed was there prepared for him, as Doctor Dufour feared, with reason, that the removal of Frederick to his own chamber, which opened into his mother's, might be followed by consequences disastrous to both.
The doctor could not give his attention to both at the same time, and occupied himself first with Marie, who, scarcely convalescent from her previous illness, was alas! struck with a mortal blow.
When Doctor Dufour returned to Frederick he found him prostrated by cerebral congestion, and soon his condition was desperate.
When Marie regained consciousness she realised that her end was approaching, and asked to see her son immediately.
The embarrassment of Marguerite, her pallor and tears, her look of despair, and the excuses and evasions she made to explain the absence of Frederick in that solemn moment were a revelation to the young mother.
She felt, so to speak, that, like herself, her son was about to die; then she asked to see David.
Marguerite ushered the preceptor into the room and left him alone with Madame Bastien, whose angelic features already bore the impress of death. With her cold white hand she made a sign to David to sit down at her bedside and said to him:
"He is not in his chamber; they are hiding him from me."
"I understand all; he is in a desperate state I know, but as my end is near, too, I wish to say farewell to him, Henri."
For the first and the last time, alas! Marie called David by his baptismal name.
"Farewell!" repeated he, with a heartrending sob "you wish to say farewell!"
"But I cannot die without telling you how much I have loved you. You knew it, did you not, my friend?"
"And you say that you are going to die! No, no! Marie, the power of my love will give new life to you!" cried David, under a sort of aberration of mind. "Die! Oh, why will you die? We love each other so much."
"Yes, our love is great, my friend, and for me it began from the day you restored the life of my son's soul."
"No, Henri, my death is not a woe for us. It seems to me, you understand, that, in the moment of leaving this life, my soul, freed from terrestrial ties, can read the future. Henri, do you know what would have been our fate?"