I walled him up
there; /they'd/ have dug him up elsewhere. Some day perhaps I can put
him in holy ground, as he used to call it,--poor man, he only took the
oath out of fear."
A tear rolled from the hard eyes of the little old man, whose rusty
wig suddenly seemed less hideous to the girl, and she turned her eyes
respectfully away from his distress. But, in spite of these tender
reminiscences, d'Orgemont kept on saying, "Don't go near the wall, you
might--"
His eyes never ceased to watch hers, hoping thus to prevent her from
examining too closely the walls of the closet, where the close air was
scarcely enough to inflate the lungs. Marie succeeded, however, in
getting a sufficiently good look in spite of her Argus, and she came
to the conclusion that the strange protuberances in the walls were
neither more nor less than sacks of coin which the miser had placed
there and plastered up.
Old d'Orgemont was now in a state of almost grotesque bewilderment.
The pain in his legs, the terror he felt at seeing a human being in
the midst of his hoards, could be read in every wrinkle of his face,
and yet at the same time his eyes expressed, with unaccustomed fire, a
lively emotion excited in him by the presence of his liberator, whose
white and rosy cheek invited kisses, and whose velvety black eye sent
waves of blood to his heart, so hot that he was much in doubt whether
they were signs of life or of death.
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