has
got worse and worse. She has completely lost her voice, and now the use
of her limbs.

What our poor friend suffers is impossible to say. I am not used to
emotions of this kind, and I am in a state of constant fright.

How I wish you were here! She is almost always delirious; but delirious
or lucid, it is always your name that she pronounces, when she can speak
a word.

The doctor tells me that she is not here for long. Since she got so ill
the old duke has not returned. He told the doctor that the sight was too
much for him.

Mme. Duvernoy is not behaving well. This woman, who thought she could
get more money out of Marguerite, at whose expense she was living almost
completely, has contracted liabilities which she can not meet, and
seeing that her neighbour is no longer of use to her, she does not even
come to see her. Everybody is abandoning her. M. de G., prosecuted for
his debts, has had to return to London. On leaving, he sent us more
money; he has done all he could, but they have returned to seize the
things, and the creditors are only waiting for her to die in order to
sell everything.

I wanted to use my last resources to put a stop to it, but the bailiff
told me it was no use, and that there are other seizures to follow.
Since she must die, it is better to let everything go than to save it
for her family, whom she has never cared to see, and who have never
cared for her. You can not conceive in the midst of what gilded misery
the poor thing is dying. Yesterday we had absolutely no money. Plate,
jewels, shawls, everything is in pawn; the rest is sold or seized.
Marguerite is still conscious of what goes on around her, and she
suffers in body, mind, and heart. Big tears trickle down her cheeks, so
thin and pale that you would never recognise the face of her whom you
loved so much, if you could see her. She has made me promise to write to
you when she can no longer write, and I write before her. She turns her
eyes toward me, but she no longer sees me; her eyes are already veiled
by the coming of death; yet she smiles, and all her thoughts, all her
soul are yours, I am sure.

Every time the door opens her eyes brighten, and she thinks you are
going to come in; then, when she sees that it is not you, her face
resumes its sorrowful expression, a cold sweat breaks out over it, and
her cheek-bones flush.

February 19, midnight.

What a sad day we have had to-day, poor M. Armand! This morning
Marguerite