"She died that afternoon. All through the long, sad hours of that strange day the three young creatures watched beside her, not knowing, in their inexperience, the exact moment at which the gentle spirit fled--not till the Sister of Charity, who, in disguise, like many others all through those awful months, still went about ministering to the sick and dying--not till Sister Angelique tapped softly at the door, and entering, saw in a moment the sad truth, did they understand that the mother and friend was no longer there--only the garment she had worn. "`I would have come sooner, but I was even more wanted elsewhere; there was nothing to be done here. The doctor saw her yesterday,' she said to Pierre, when it was explained to her who he was. "`And the kind priest,' sobbed Edmee; `he will come again, dear Sister, will he not? No one knows he is a priest,' she said to Pierre. `He has to dress like a workman.' "Angelique stayed a while and did what she could. There was a little, a very little money remaining, and Pierre drew out the remains of his. Edmee had been obliged to sell everything they had brought away in their flight from the Rue de Lille. `My portrait was the last to go,' she said, `but my darling did not know it. And as it brought us _you_, Pierre, we must not regret it. Some day we may buy it back again,' and by degrees she related to him all the details of the last few weeks. How the Marquis and Marquise had been taken very soon after Ludovic had left, how but for a warning from Marguerite Ribou she, her mother, and Edmond would infallibly have perished as _they_ did. "`They were not long in prison,' she said. `Marguerite told us the day they were guillotined. My uncle died like a gentleman, and at the last the Marquise seemed to find courage too. They must have repented of much in those last days I think. See! this is what my poor uncle sent us secretly,' and she held out a soiled scrap of paper, on which were written the two words `Forgive me!' `Ah,' continued Edmee, who--such is the education of sorrow--at fourteen spoke like a woman, `I cannot murmur that _she_ is gone when I think of her gentle death, and what it might have been. Marguerite had not wished to save Edmond,' she went on after a pause. `She is very angry, even now, whenever she sees him. I think her brain is a little gone. But she has been most faithful to _us_. It was that dreadful Victorine that caused it. She kept persuading my aunt there was no danger, and thus delayed their escaping till she had completed her own plans. She must have robbed them fearfully.'