“Father, I will,” said Maximilian.
“And now, once more, adieu,” said Morrel. “Go, leave me; I would be alone. You will find my will in the secretary in my bedroom.”
The young man remained standing and motionless, having but the force of will and not the power of execution.
“Hear me, Maximilian,” said his father. “Suppose I was a soldier like you, and ordered to carry a certain redoubt, and you knew I must be killed in the assault, would you not say to me, as you said just now, ‘Go, father; for you are dishonored by delay, and death is preferable to shame!’”
“Yes, yes,” said the young man, “yes;” and once again embracing his father with convulsive pressure, he said, “Be it so, my father.”
And he rushed out of the study. When his son had left him, Morrel remained an instant standing with his eyes fixed on the door; then putting forth his arm, he pulled the bell. After a moment’s interval, Cocles appeared.
It was no longer the same man — the fearful revelations of the three last days had crushed him. This thought — the house of Morrel is about to stop payment — bent him to the earth more than twenty years would otherwise have done.
“My worthy Cocles,” said Morrel in a tone impossible to describe, “do you remain in the ante-chamber. When the gentleman who came three months ago — the agent of Thomson & French — arrives, announce his arrival to me.” Cocles made no reply; he made a sign with his head, went into the anteroom, and seated himself. Morrel fell back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the clock; there were seven minutes left, that was all. The hand moved on with incredible rapidity, he seemed to see its motion.
What passed in the mind of this man at the supreme moment of his agony cannot be told in words. He was still comparatively young, he was surrounded by the loving care of a devoted family, but he had convinced himself by a course of reasoning, illogical perhaps, yet certainly plausible, that he must separate himself from all he held dear in the world, even life itself. To form the slightest idea of his feelings, one must have seen his face with its expression of enforced resignation and its tear-moistened eyes raised to heaven. The minute hand moved on. The pistols were loaded; he stretched forth his hand, took one up, and murmured his daughter’s name. Then he laid it down seized his pen, and wrote a few words. It seemed to him as if he had not taken a sufficient farewell of his beloved daughter. Then he turned again to the clock, counting time now not by minutes, but by seconds. He took up the deadly weapon again, his lips parted and his eyes fixed on the clock, and then shuddered at the click of the trigger as he cocked the pistol. At this moment of mortal anguish the cold sweat came forth upon his brow, a pang stronger than death clutched at his heart-strings. He heard the door of the staircase creak on its hinges — the clock gave its warning to strike eleven — the door of his study opened; Morrel did not turn round — he expected these words of Cocles, “The agent of Thomson & French.”
He placed the muzzle of the pistol between his teeth. Suddenly he heard a cry — it was his daughter’s voice. He turned and saw Julie. The pistol fell from his hands. “My father!” cried the young girl, out of breath, and half dead with joy —“saved, you are saved!” And she threw herself into his arms, holding in her extended hand a red, netted silk purse.
“Saved, my child!” said Morrel; “what do you mean?”
“Yes, saved — saved! See, see!” said the young girl.
Morrel took the purse, and started as he did so, for a vague remembrance reminded him that it once belonged to himself. At one end was the receipted bill for the 287,000 francs, and at the other was a diamond as large as a hazel-nut, with these words on a small slip of parchment: — Julie’s Dowry.