"I give it all to
you."
A flow of blood rose to his mouth; and they all thought him dead. But he
still had strength enough to sign his confession, and to say jestingly
to M. Tabaret, "Ah, ha, my friend, so you go in for the detective
business, do you! It must be great fun to trap one's friends in person!
Ah, I have had a fine game; but, with three women in the play, I was
sure to lose."
The death struggle commenced, and, when the doctor arrived, he could
only announce the decease of M. Noel Gerdy, advocate.
CHAPTER XX.
Some months later, one evening, at old Mademoiselle de Goello's house,
the Marchioness d'Arlange, looking ten years younger than when we saw
her last, was giving her dowager friends an account of the wedding of
her granddaughter Claire, who had just married the Viscount Albert de
Commarin.
"The wedding," said she, "took place on our estate in Normandy, without
any flourish of trumpets. My son-in-law wished it; for which I think he
is greatly to blame. The scandal raised by the mistake of which he had
been the victim, called for a brilliant wedding. That was my opinion,
and I did not conceal it. But the boy is as stubborn as his father,
which is saying a good deal; he persisted in his obstinacy.
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