Time went by; five and then six o’clock struck.  And at about twenty minutes to seven Mathieu, on looking into the yard, and there catching sight of Denis, who was to return to Paris by the seven o’clock train, hastened down to tell him to call upon Boutan and beg the doctor to come at once.  Then, as soon as his son had started, he rejoined Marianne upstairs, still unwilling to call or warn anybody.  But a third attack followed, and this time it was the thunderbolt.

Rose had half risen in bed, her arms thrown out, her mouth distended as she gasped “Mamma! mamma!”

Then in a sudden fit of revolt, a last flash of life, she sprang from her bed and stepped towards the window, whose panes were all aglow with the rising sun.  And for a moment she leant there, her legs bare, her shoulders bare, and her heavy hair falling over her like a royal mantle.  Never had she looked more beautiful, more dazzling, full of strength and love.

But she murmured:  “Oh! how I suffer!  It is all over, I am going to die.”

Her father darted towards her; her mother sustained her, throwing her arms around her like invincible armor which would shield her from all harm.

“Don’t talk like that, you unhappy girl!  It is nothing; it is only another attack which will pass away.  Get into bed again, for mercy’s sake.  Your old friend Boutan is on his way here.  You will be up and well again to-morrow.”

“No, no, I am going to die; it is all over.”

She fell back in their arms; they only had time to lay her on her bed.  And the thunderbolt fell:  without a word, without a glance, in a few minutes she died of congestion of the lungs.

Ah! the imbecile thunderbolt!  Ah! the scythe, which with a single stroke blindly cuts down a whole springtide!  It was all so brutally sudden, so utterly unexpected, that at first the stupefaction of Marianne and Mathieu was greater than their despair.  In response to their cries the whole farm hastened up, the fearful news filled the place, and then all sank into the deep silence of death—­all work, all life ceasing.  And the other children were there, scared and overcome:  little Nicolas, who did not yet understand things; Gregoire, the page of the previous day; Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, the three maids of honor, and their elders, Claire and Gervais, who felt the blow more deeply.  And there were yet the others journeying away, Blaise, Denis, and Ambroise, travelling to Paris at that very moment, in ignorance of the unforeseen, frightful hatchet-stroke which had fallen on the family.  Where would the terrible tidings reach them?  In what cruel distress would they return!  And the doctor who would soon arrive too!  But all at once, amid the terror and confusion, there rang out the cries of Frederic, the poor dead girl’s affianced lover.  He shrieked his despair aloud, he was half mad, he wished to kill himself, saying that he was the murderer and that he ought to have prevented Rose from so rashly riding home through the storm!  He had to be led away and watched for fear of some fresh misfortune.  His sudden frenzy had gone to every heart; sobs burst forth and lamentations arose from the woful parents, from the brothers, the sisters, from the whole of stricken Chantebled, which death thus visited for the first time.