ed of their sick master. They heard the terrible
question, and an awful silence ensued.

"Yes," replied the old man, heaving up the monosyllable from his chest
with a hoarse, broken sigh.

Then arose voices of lamentation, which groaned without measure, and
filled with regrets and prayers the chamber where the agonized father
sought with his eyes for the portrait of his son. This was for Athos
like the transition which led to his dream. Without uttering a cry,
without shedding a tear, patient, mild, resigned as a martyr, he raised
his eyes toward heaven, in order to there see again, rising above the
mountain of Gigelli, the beloved shade which was leaving him at the
moment of Grimaud's arrival. Without doubt, while looking toward the
heavens, when resuming his marvelous dream, he repassed by the same road
by which the vision, at once so terrible and so sweet, had led him
before, for, after having gently closed his eyes, he reopened them and
began to smile. He had just seen Raoul, who had smiled upon him. With
his hands joined upon his breast, his face turned toward the window,
bathed by the fresh air of night, which brought to his pillow the aroma
of the flowers and the woods, Athos entered, never again to come out of
it, into the contemplation of that paradise which the living never see.
God willed, no doubt, to open to this elect the treasures of eternal
beatitude, at the hour when other men tremble with the idea of being
severely received by the Lord, and cling to this life they know, in the
dread of the other life of which they get a glimpse by the dismal, murky
torches of death. Athos was guided by the pure and serene soul of his
son, which aspired to be like the paternal soul. Everything for this
just man was melody and perfume in the rough road which souls take to
return to the celestial country. After an hour of this ecstasy, Athos
softly raised his hands, as white as wax; the smile did not quit his
lips, and he murmured low, so low as scarcely to be audible, these three
words addressed to God or to Raoul:

"HERE I AM!"

And his hands fell down slowly, as if he himself had laid them on the
bed.

Death had been kind and mild to this noble creature. It had spared him
the tortures of the agony, the convulsions of the last departure; it had
opened with an indulgent finger the gates of eternity to that noble soul
worthy of every respect. God had no doubt ordered it thus that the pious
remembrance of this death