re is he?’

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

“‘He is not here,’ I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that

he referred to the brother.

“‘He! Proud as these Nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where

is the man who was here? Turn my face to him.’

“I did so, raising the boy’s head against my knee. But, invested

for the moment with extraordinary power, he raised himself

completely: obliging me to rise too, or I could not have still

supported him.

“‘Marquis,’ said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened

wide, and his right hand raised, ‘in the days when all these things

are to be answered for, I summon you and yours, the last of your

bad race, to answer for them. I mark this cross of blood upon you,

as a sign that I do it. In the days when all these things are to be

answered for, I summon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to

answer for them separately. I mark this cross of blood upon him,

as a sign that I do it.’

“Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his

forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an instant with the

finger yet raised, and, as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid

him down dead.

“When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found

her raving in precisely the same order and continuity. I knew that

this might last for many hours, and that it would