ust before she died that terrible order: "You, who
will see his father, I charge you to tell him that I cursed his son. I
wish that he should know, it is necessary that he should know, for the
sake of truth and justice." And was he, oh! Lord, about to obey that
order, was it one of those divine commands which must be executed even if
the result be a torrent of blood and tears? For a few seconds Pierre
suffered from a heart-rending combat within him, hesitating between the
act of truth and justice which the dead woman had called for and his own
personal desire for forgiveness, and the horror he would feel should he
kill that poor old man by fulfilling his implacable mission which could
benefit nobody. And certainly the other one, the son, must have
understood what a supreme struggle was going on in the priest's mind, a
struggle which would decide his own father's fate, for his glance became
yet more suppliant than ever.

"One first thought that it was merely indigestion," continued Pierre,
"but the Prince became so much worse, that one was alarmed, and the
doctor was sent for--"

Ah! Prada's eyes, they had become so despairing, so full of the most
touching and weightiest things, that the priest could read in them all
the decisive reasons which were about to stay his tongue. No, no, he
would not strike an innocent old man, he had promised nothing, and to
obey the last expression of the dead woman's hatred would have seemed to
him like charging her memory with a crime. The young Count, too, during
those few minutes of anguish, had suffered a whole life of such
abominable torture, that after all some little justice was done.

"And then," Pierre concluded, "when the doctor arrived he at once
recognised that it was a case of infectious fever. There can be no doubt
of it. This morning I attended the funeral, it was very splendid and very
touching."

Orlando did not insist, but contented himself with saying that he also
had felt much emotion all the morning on thinking of that funeral. Then,
as he turned to set the papers on the table in order with his trembling
hands, his son, icy cold with perspiration, staggering and clinging to
the back of a chair in order that he might not fall, again gave Pierre a
long glance, but a very soft one, full of distracted gratitude.

"I am leaving this evening," resumed Pierre, who felt exhausted and
wished to break off the conversation, "and I must now bid you farewell.
Have you any commi