"My friend," said Rudolph, "send this letter immediately by the colonel; he will bring my daughter back with him in the carriage. Beg the clergyman and witnesses to walk into the next room." "Oh, heaven!" cried Sarah, in a supplicating tone, when the squire had departed, "grant me strength enough to see her--let me not die before she arrives!" "Oh, why have you not always been as good a mother?" "Thanks to you, at least, I know repentance--devotion--self-denial. Yes, just now, when my brother said our child lived--let me say _our_ child--I felt that I was stricken unto death. I did not tell him, but I was happy. The birth of our child will be legitimatized and I should die afterward." "Do not speak thus!" "Oh! this time I do not deceive you--you will see." "And no vestige remains of that implacable ambition which has ruined you! Why has fate willed that your repentance should be so late?" "It is late, but profound--sincere; I swear it to you. At this solemn moment, if I thank heaven to take me from the world, it is because my life has been to you a horrible burden." "Sarah, in mercy--" "Rudolph, a last prayer--your hand." The prince, turning away his eyes, gave his hand to the countess, who placed it between her own. "Oh! your hands are icy cold," cried Rudolph with affright. "Yes, I am dying. Perhaps for a last punishment, heaven does not will that I should embrace my child." "Oh! yes, yes, it will be moved by your remorse." "And you, my friend, are you touched? do you pardon me? Oh! in mercy, say it. Directly, when our child shall be here--if she comes in time--you cannot pardon me before her; that would be to teach her how guilty I have been, and that you would not like. When I am once dead, what matters it to you if she love me?" "Be comforted; she shall know nothing." "Rudolph, pardon! oh! pardon! Will you be without pity! Am I not sufficiently unhappy?" "Well, may heaven pardon the evil you have done to your child, as I pardon what you have done to me, unhappy woman." "You pardon me--from the bottom of your heart?" "From the bottom of my heart," replied the prince. The lady pressed the hand of Rudolph to her dying lips in an ecstasy of joy and gratitude, and said, "Let the clergyman come in, my friend, and tell him that afterward he must stay. I feel myself very weak."