Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/197

Rh de Piennes, "my blood runs cold. Never have I seen anything so terrible; that is to say, I have not seen it, although I reached the spot immediately after. But, for all that"

"What has happened? Speak quickly, mademoiselle."

"Well, madam, it is that, three doors from here, a poor unfortunate young girl threw herself from a window, not three minutes ago; if madam had arrived a minute sooner she would have heard the crash."

"Merciful Heaven! And the poor creature killed herself?"

"Madam, it is horrible. Baptiste, who has been to the war, says that he has never seen anything equal to it. From the third story, madam."

"Was she killed instantly?"

"Oh! madam, she was still alive, she even spoke. 'I wish some one would put me out of my misery,' she said. Her bones were in pulp. Madam can imagine what a terrible fall she had."

"But that poor soul—has any one gone to her? Did any one send for a doctor, a priest?"

"For a priest—madam knows better than I, of course. But if I were a priest— A creature so abandoned as to kill herself! Be-