I was up here as I am now--and the moonlight
was around me as it is now--and I thought that just behind the wing
of that third angel's head carved yonder--do you see?' and he got up
and made me get up too, and turned me round with his hand on my
shoulder--'a white dove had made its resting-place. Is there a white
dove there, Lapui? If there is I shall be a happy man and all my
griefs will be at an end! Will you go and look--and tell me if there
is a white dove nestling there? Then I will say good-night to you
and go home.' God forgive me!--I thought to humor him in his fancy,
and so I left him to walk those five steps--only five at the utmost-
-and see if perhaps among the many doves that fly about the towers,
it might not be that a white one, as he said, should have chosen to
settle in the place he pointed out to me, 'for,' thought I, 'he will
be quiet then and satisfied.' And like a blind fool I went--and when
I came back the platform was empty!--Ah, Monseigneur!--he had said
good-night indeed, and gone home!"
"You mean that he flung himself from this parapet?" said Bonpre, in
a low, horrified tone.
"That was the way of it, Monseigneur," said Lapui commiseratingly,--
"His body was found next day crushed to bits on the pavement below;
but somehow no one troubled much about it, or thought he had thrown
himself from the tower of Notre Dame.
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