Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/84

64 pale and motionless on her bed, they lifted up their hands toward heaven and stood transfixed, as though struck by lightning.

"Call Madame de Villefort!—wake Madame de Villefort!" cried the procureur du roi from the door of his chamber, which it seemed he scarcely dared to leave. But instead of obeying him, the servants stood watching d'Avrigny, who ran to Valentine, and raised her in his arms.

"What! this one, too! he exclaimed. "Oh! when will this cease?"

Villefort rushed into the room.

"What are you saying, doctor?" he exclaimed, raising his hands to heaven.

"I say that Valentine is dead!" replied d'Avrigny, in a voice terrible in its solemn calmness.

Villefort staggered and buried his head in the bed. On the exclamation of the doctor and the cry of the father, the servants all fled with muttered imprecations; they were heard running down the stairs and through the passages, then there was a rush in the court, then all was still; they had, one and all, deserted from the accursed house.

Just then, Madame de Villefort, in the act of slipping on her dressing-gown, threw aside the drapery, and for a moment remained still, as though interrogating the occupants of the room, while she endeavored to call up some rebellious tears. On a sudden she stepped, or rather bounded, with outstretched arms, toward the table. She saw d'Avrigny curiously examining the glass, which she felt certain of having emptied during the night. It was now a third full, just as it was when she threw the contents into the ashes. The specter of Valentine rising before the poisoner would have alarmed her less. It was, indeed, the same color as the draught she had poured into the glass, and which Valentine had drunk; it was indeed the poison, which could not deceive d'Avrigny, which he now examined so closely: it was doubtless a miracle from heaven, that, notwithstanding her precautions, there should be some trace, some proof remaining to denounce the crime.

While Madame de Villefort remained rooted to the spot like a statue of terror, and Villefort, with his head hidden in the bed-clothes, saw nothing around him, d'Avrigny approached the window, that he might the better examine the contents of the glass, and dipping the tip of his finger in, tasted it.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "it is no longer brucine that is used; let me see what it is?"

Then he ran to one of the cupboards in Valentine's room, which had been transformed into a medicine closet, and taking from its silver case a small bottle of nitric acid, dropped a little of it into the liquor, which immediately changed to a blood-red color.