onscious of her own
voice--"Arthur, what is it?" The door of the drawing-room flew open
before the fierce stroke of her palm.

M. Villefort stood where she had left him; but while his left hand
supported his weight against the table, his right was thrust into his
breast. One of the pistols lay at his feet.

She thought it was Death's self that confronted her in his face, but he
spoke to her, trying faintly to smile.

"Do not come in," he said, "I have met with--an accident. It is nothing.
Do not come in. A servant----"

His last recollection was of her white face and white draperies as he
fell, and somehow, dizzy, sick, and faint as he was, he seemed to hear
her calling out, in a voice strangely like Jenny's, "Arthur! Arthur!"

In less than half an hour the whole house was astir. Upstairs physicians
were with the wounded man, downstairs Mrs. Trent talked and wept
over her daughter, after the manner of all good women. She was fairly
terrified by Bertha's strange shudderings, quick, strained breath, and
dilated eyes. She felt as if she could not reach her--as if she hardly
made herself heard.

"You must calm yourself, Bertha," she would say. "Try to calm yourself.
We must hope for the best. Oh, how could it have happened!"

It was in the midst of this that a servant entered with a letter, which
he handed to his mistress. The envelope bore upon it nothing but her own
name.

She looked at it with a bewildered expression.

"For me?" she said.

"It fell from Monsieur's pocket as we carried him upstairs," replied the
man.

"Don't mind it now, Bertha," said her mother, "Ah, poor M. Villefort!"

But Bertha had opened it mechanically and was reading it

At first it seemed as if it must have been written in a language she did
not understand; but after the first few sentences a change appeared. Her
breath came and went more quickly than before--a kind of horror grew in
her eyes. At the last she uttered a low, struggling cry. The paper
was crushed in her hand, she cast one glance around the room as if
in bewildering search for refuge, and flung herself upon her mother's
breast.

"Save me, mother!" she said. "Help me! If he dies now, I shall go mad!"

Afterward, in telling her story at home, good Mrs. Trent almost broke
down.

"Oh, Jenny!" she said. "Just to think of the poor fellow's having had it
in his pocket then! Of course I did not see it, but one can fancy that
it was something kind and tender,--perhaps so