"
Mrs. Bread stared, wondering, with parted lips. "Is it from the count,
sir?" she asked.
"From the count--from his death-bed," said Newman.
"I will come, then. I will be bold, for once, for HIM."
She led Newman into the great drawing-room with which he had already
made acquaintance, and retired to execute his commands. Newman waited
a long time; at last he was on the point of ringing and repeating his
request. He was looking round him for a bell when the marquis came in
with his mother on his arm. It will be seen that Newman had a logical
mind when I say that he declared to himself, in perfect good faith, as
a result of Valentin's dark hints, that his adversaries looked grossly
wicked. "There is no mistake about it now," he said to himself as they
advanced. "They're a bad lot; they have pulled off the mask." Madame
de Bellegarde and her son certainly bore in their faces the signs of
extreme perturbation; they looked like people who had passed a sleepless
night. Confronted, moreover, with an annoyance which they hoped they had
disposed of, it was not natural that they should have any very tender
glances to bestow upon Newman. He stood before them, and such eye-beams
as they found available they leveled at him; Newman feeling as if the
door of a sepulchre had suddenly been opened, and the damp darkness were
being exhaled.
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