around him, d’Avrigny approached the window, that he might the better examine the contents of the glass, and dipping the tip of his finger in, tasted it.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, “it is no longer brucine that is used; let me see what it is!”
Then he ran to one of the cupboards in Valentine’s room, which had been transformed into a medicine closet, and taking from its silver case a small bottle of nitric acid, dropped a little of it into the liquor, which immediately changed to a bloodred color.
“Ah,” exclaimed d’Avrigny, in a voice in which the horror of a judge unveiling the truth was mingled with the delight of a student making a discovery.
Madame de Villefort was overpowered; her eyes first flashed and then swam, she staggered towards the door and disappeared. Directly afterwards the distant sound of a heavy weight falling on the ground was heard, but no one paid any attention to it; the nurse was engaged in watching the chemical analysis, and Villefort was still absorbed in grief. M. d’Avrigny alone had followed Madame de Villefort with his eyes, and watched her hurried retreat. He lifted up the drapery over the entrance to Edward’s room, and his eye reaching as far as Madame de Villefort’s apartment, he beheld her extended lifeless on the floor.
“Go to the assistance of Madame de Villefort,” he said to the nurse. “Madame de Villefort is ill.”
“But Mademoiselle de Villefort—” stammered the nurse.
“Mademoiselle de Villefort no longer requires help,” said d’Avrigny, “since she is dead.”
“Dead—dead!” groaned forth Villefort, in a paroxysm of grief, which was the more terrible from the novelty of the sensation in the iron heart