The Cold Embrace | Page 5

light the bright-eyed Debardeuse fades sadly. He looks her
in the face. How the brightness of her eyes dies out! Again he looks her
in the face. How white that face has grown! Again--and now it is the
shadow of a face alone that looks in his.
Again--and they are gone--the bright eyes, the face, the shadow of the

face. He is alone; alone in that vast saloon.
Alone, and, in the terrible silence, he hears the echoes of his own
footsteps in that dismal dance which has no music.
No music but the beating of his breast. The the cold arms are round his
neck--they whirl him round, they will not be flung off, or cast away; he
can no more escape from their icy grasp than he can escape from death.
He looks behind him--there is nothing but himself in the great empty
salle; but he can feel--cold, deathlike, but O, how palpable!--the long
slender fingers, and the ring which was his mother's.
He tries to shout, but he has no power in his burning throat. The silence
of the place is only broken by the echoes of his own footsteps in the
dance from which he cannot extricate himself. Who says he has no
partner? The cold hands are clasped on his breast, and now he does not
shun their caress. No! One more polka, if he drops down dead.
The lights are all out, and, half an hour after, the gendarmes come in
with a lantern to see that the house is empty; they are followed by a
great dog that they have found seated howling on the steps of the
theatre. Near the principal entrance they stumble over--
The body of a student, who has died from want of food, exhaustion,
and the breaking of a blood-vessel.

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