I Will Repay | Page 7

bed, where lay the dead
body of the young Vicomte. He made no movement, nor dit he utter a
word or sigh. Some of those who were present at the time declared that
his mind had completely given way, and that he neither felt nor
understood the death of his son.
The Marquis de Villefranche, who had followed his friend to the last,
took a final leave of the sorrowing house.
Juliette scarcely noticed him. Her eyes were fixed on her father. She
would not look at her brother. A childlike fear had seized her, there,
suddenly, between these two silent figures: the living and the dead.
But just as the Marquis was leaving the room, the old man spoke for
the first time.
"Marquis," he said very quietly, "you forget - you have not yet told me
who killed my son."
"It was in a fair fight, M. de Duc," replied the young Marquis, awed in
spite of all his frivolity, his light-heartedness, by this strange, almost
mysterious tragedy.
"Who killed my son, M. le Marquis?" repeated the old man
mechanically. "I have the right to know," he added with sudden, weird
energy.
"It was M. Paul Déroulède, M. le Duc," replied the Marquis. "I repeat,
it was in fair fight."
The old Duc sighed as if in satisfaction. Then with a courteous gesture
of farewell reminiscent of the grand siècle he added:
"All thanks from me and mine to you, Marquis, would seem but a
mockery. Your devotion to my son is beyond human thanks. I'll not
detain you now. Farewell."

Escorted by two lacqueys, the Marquis passed out of the room.
"Dismiss all the servants, Juliette; I have something to say," said the
old Duc, and the young girl, silent, obedient, did as her father bade her.
Father and sister were alone with their dead. As soon as the last hushed
footsteps of the retreating servants died away in the distance. The Duc
de Marny seemed to throw away the lethargy which had enveloped him
until now. With a quick, feverish gesture he seized his daughter's wrist,
and murmured excitedly:
"His name. You heard his name, Juliette?"
"Yes, father," replied the child.
"Paul Déroulède! Paul Déroulède! You'll not forget it?"
"Never, father!"
"He killed your brother! You understand that? Killed my only son, the
hope of my house, the last descendant of the most glorious race that has
ever added lustre to the history of France."
"In fair fight, father!" protested the child.
"'Tis not fair for a man to kill a boy," retorted the old man, with furious
energy.
"Déroulède is thirty: my boy was scarce out of his teens: may the
vengeance of God fall upon the murderer!"
Juliette, awed, terrified, was gazing at her father with great, wondering
eyes. He seemed unlike himself. His face wore a curious expression of
ecstasy and of hatred, also of hope and exultation, whenever he looked
steadily at her.
That the final glimmer of a tottering reason was fast leaving the poor,
aching head she was too young to realise. Madness was a word that had
only a vague meaning for her. Though she did not understand her father

at the present moment, though she was half afraid of him, she would
have rejected with scorn and horror any suggestion that he was mad.
Therefore when he took her hand and, drawing her nearer to the bed
and to himself, placed it upon her dead brother's breast, she recoiled at
the touch of the inanimate body, so unlike anything she had ever
touched before, but she obeyed her father without any question, and
listened to his words as to those of a sage.
"Juliette, you are now fourteen, and able to understand what I am going
to ask of you. If I were not chained to this miserable chair, if I were not
a hopeless, abject cripple, I would not depute anyone, not even you, my
only child, to do that, which God demands that one of us should do."
He paused a moment, then continued earnestly:
"Remember, Juliette, that you are of the house of Marny, that you are a
Catholic, and that God hears you now. For you shall swear an oath
before Him and me, an oath from which only death can relieve you.
Will you swear, my child?"
"If you wish it, father."
"You have been to confession lately, Juliette?"
"Yes, father; also to holy communion, yesterday," replied the child. "It
was the Fête-Dieu, you know."
"Then you are in a state of grace, my child?"
"I was yesterday morning, father," replied the young girl naïvely, "but I
have committed some little sins since then."
"Then make your confession to God in your heart now. You must be in
a state of grace when you speak