Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/106

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brought about instant death. The suicidal mania, predominant in our family, was not to be resisted any longer.

As she often suffered from sleeplessness, she had given orders never to be disturbed in the morning, as she herself used to ring for her maid when she wanted her. One day, however, as no one came and her bell had not been heard, the maid went quietly to her door and listened. It seemed to her that she heard a faint moaning; she tapped lightly, and getting no answer she knocked a little louder, still no reply was given. She tried to open, the door was locked within. Frightened, she went to inform her master of her fears.

The lock was burst open, the room was empty, but in a closet near it, a kind of small boudoir, hung in black velvet, on a low couch of the same material, Camille—in a tight-fitting black gauze dress—was found stretched out lifeless and of a livid palor, looking like a carved image on a sarcophagus.

Although she was not quite dead—for her heart was slightly beating—still she was beyond all medical aid, and the doctor who

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