Comte, her royal highness Madame is desirous
of knowing how you are able to bear your wound, and to express to you,
by my lips, her great regret at seeing you suffer."

As she pronounced the word Madame, Guiche started; he had not as yet
remarked the person to whom the voice belonged, and he naturally turned
toward the direction whence it proceeded. But, as he felt the cold hand
still resting on his own, he again turned toward the motionless figure
beside him. "Was it you who spoke, madame?" he asked, in a weak voice,
"or is there another person beside you in the room?"

"Yes," replied the figure, in an almost unintelligible voice, as she
bent down her head.

"Well!" said the wounded man, with a great effort, "I thank you. Tell
Madame that I no longer regret dying, since she has remembered me."

At this word "dying," pronounced by one whose life seemed to hang on a
thread, the masked lady could not restrain her tears, which flowed under
her mask, and which appeared upon her cheeks just where the mask left
her face bare. If Guiche had been in fuller possession of his senses, he
would have seen her tears roll like glistening pearls, and fall upon his
bed. The lady, forgetting that she wore her mask, raised her hand as
though to wipe her eyes, and meeting the rough velvet, she tore away her
mask in anger and threw it on the floor. At the unexpected apparition
before him, which seemed to issue from a cloud, Guiche uttered a cry and
stretched out his arms toward her; but every word perished on his lips,
and his strength seemed utterly abandoning him. His right hand, which
had followed his first impulse, without calculating the amount of
strength he had left, fell back again upon the bed, and immediately
afterward the white linen was stained with a larger spot than before. In
the meantime, the young man's eyes became dim, and closed as if he were
already struggling with the angel of death: and then, after a few
involuntary movements, his head fell back motionless on his pillow;
from pale he had become livid. The lady was frightened; but on this
occasion, contrary to what is usually the case, fear became attractive.
She leaned over the young man, gazed earnestly, fixedly at his pale and
cold face, which she almost touched, then imprinted a rapid kiss upon De
Quiche's left hand, who, trembling as if an electric shock had passed
through him, awoke a second time, opened his large eyes, incapable of
recognition, and again fell