That same night one could have seen a man on a barge in the Seine discharging the contents of a trunk into the river. They could also have heard him murmur: “My poor Marceline, my poor Marceline! It was not your fault.” At dawn Théophraste knocked at Ambrose’s door. Ambrose saw that he was greatly agitated, and asked him in sympathetic tones what had happened. Théophraste could not reply. His tongue seemed riveted to his mouth. He crawled to the bed, and, lying down, wept. At last Ambrose was able to console him sufficiently to get these few words from him: “I felt the flame of murder pass through my veins. The impulse to kill had returned to me after centuries. The same impulse that had made me decapitate my faithless wife, Marie Antoinette Neron, two hundred years previously, and to throw her body into the river. I forgive M. Lecamus. When I am dead go and look for him and tell him that I name him my testamentary executor. I leave him all my worldly goods. He will know what to do with the little oaken chest, in which is locked the terrible secrets of the last months of my sad life.” Having said these words, Théophraste raised himself on the pillow, for the oppression increased, and he knew that the end was near. His look was no longer of this world. His gaze was fixed on some imaginary object far away, and in a doleful voice he said: “I have seen—I see—I turn again toward the square ray of light.” And he expired! THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Double Life, by Gaston Leroux