Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/488

 closed door, hoping to hear something definite. Her wait was not long.

Suddenly a cry … a groan … the groan that can come only from a body from which all vitality is escaping.

And Doña Luisa rushed in just in time to support her husband as he was falling to the floor.

The senator was excusing himself confusedly to the walls, the furniture, and turning his back in his agitation on the dismayed René, the only one who could have listened to him.

"He did not let me finish.… He guessed from the very first word.…"

Hearing the outcry. Chichí hastened in in time to see her father slipping from his wife's arms to the sofa, and from there to the floor, with glassy, staring eyes, and foaming at the mouth.

From the luxurious rooms came forth the world-old cry, always the same from the humblest home to the highest and loneliest:—

"Oh, Julio!… Oh, my son, my son!" …