The servant had halted ten or fifteen yards away.

Marie had reached where the duke lay and stood now close by him, her arms at her side and her head bowed.

The duchess walked up to her husband and, kneeling beside him, lifted the handkerchief from his face.

The expression wherewith he had spoken his epitaph--the summary of his life--was set on his face, so that he seemed still to smile in bitter amusement.

And the little duchess looked long on the face that smiled in contempt on life and death alike.