After a pause, I ventured to ask what became of Madame de Crequy, Clement¹’s mother.

“She never made any inquiry² about him,” said my lady. “She must have known that he was dead; though how, we never could tell. Medlicott remembered afterwards that it was about, if not on — Medlicott to this day declares that it was on the very Monday, June the nineteenth, when her son was executed, that Madame de Crequy left off her rouge³ and took to her bed, as one bereaved⁴ and hopeless. It certainly was about that time; and Medlicott — who was deeply impressed by that dream of Madame de Crequy’s (the relation of which I told you had had such an effect on my lord), in which she had seen the figure of Virginie — as the only light object amid much surrounding darkness as of night, smiling and beckoning⁵ Clement on — on — till at length the bright phantom⁶ stopped, motionless, and Madame de Crequy’s eyes began to penetrate⁷ the murky⁸ darkness, and to see closing around her the gloomy dripping walls which she had once seen and never forgotten — the walls of the vault⁹ of the chapel¹⁰ of the De Crequys in Saint Germain l’Auxerrois; and there the two last of the Crequys laid them down among their forefathers¹¹, and Madame de Crequy had wakened to the sound of the great door, which led to the open air, being locked upon her — I say Medlicott, who was predisposed by this dream to look out for the supernatural, always declared that Madame de Crequy was made conscious in some mysterious way, of her son’s death, on the very day and hour when it occurred, and that after that she had no more anxiety, but was only conscious of a kind of stupefying despair.”

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