He never stopped for an instant until he had reached his private cabinet, into which he burst tumultuously. He tore open the escritoire, and feeling blindly within it, found the key of the chest. Then he dragged forth the chest, and thrust the key into the lock. He flung back the lid, and, leaning over, gazed stupidly down and in.
Where was the glittering treasure that he had left lying upon those velvet-covered trays? It was gone! Nothing left but a mass of muddy charcoal, here and there whitened as though turned to ashes by the touch of fire, and all wet with a pungent fluid that had stained the purple velvet to a dirty reddish-yellow.
"Jean! Edward! François!" It was the marquis's voice, and it rang terribly through the silence of the Hôtel de Flourens.
The next instant there came a crash and a heavy fall, and when the frightened servants crowded around the open door and into the marquis's cabinet, they beheld their master lying upon his face under the table, with an overturned chair upon him, and one arm, with its clinched hand, under his face. He was snoring with stertorous breathing.
[Illustration: "THEY BEHELD THEIR MASTER LYING UPON HIS FACE UNDER THE TABLE."]
Darkness as of death, and, excepting for the hollow murmur of the river, silence as of the grave, utter and profound.
The sky above is a dim, misty opalescence of moonlit stillness; against it rise great, towering, crazy buildings, sharp-roofed, gabled, as black as ink. Across the narrow stretch of intervening water tower other buildings--crazy, sharp-roofed, gabled, as black as ink--and above all loom the great spires of the church into the pale sky, ponderous, massive, silent. One broken strip of moonlight stretches across parapet and roadway of the bridge, white and still. All around it is gaping blackness. Suddenly there is a little movement in the darkness, the sound of a stumbling step, halting and uneven, and then some one appears in the white patch of moonlight. It is Oliver, pale, hollow-eyed, dishevelled, his hair tangled, his lace cravat torn open at the throat, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his silk stockings stained and spattered with mud. He reels like a drunken man as he struggles against the invisible power that holds him relentless as fate. Step by step that power thrusts him, struggling and shuffling, towards the parapet of the bridge. He mounts it and flings one leg over the edge. Beneath him in the inky blackness he can hear but not see the water rushing onward under the arches.