The house on the lake was in tatters, so destroyed was it that it barely resembled her fading memories. She could barely stifle the melancholy sob that threatened to escape her throat. All the beauty, knowledge and accumulated relics—they were all destroyed in a rage born from the blackest despair when she continued to not return as he had asked and made her promise to see her poor, sad Erik before he leaves this world. A tear forms in Christine's right eye, overflowing the delicate lower lid and trickling down her cheek.
The man whom Erik would refer to as Daroga, the same man everyone else simply referred to as le Perse, took notice of her presence. He looks up at her from a lone surviving stuffed chair, and says, "Mademoiselle Daaé?" Christine nods without saying a word. He then gets up and motions for her to follow him. He leads her to her old temporary bedroom, the Louis-Philippe room, the memories of that stay there vivid in her mind, although even then they were already fading.
"He is dying, mademoiselle," the Persian speaks. "As I suppose you probably already know." She knows this deep in her heart, and has since she saw the ad in the Époque. "He would like to see you alone, one last time before he is totally gone. He has something to confess to you that he refuses to tell to me."
She walks in the room that once was filled with fresh flowers for her as he plunges again into yet another terrible coughing fit. She runs to his side, weeping openly tears that she had long ago denied could ever happen again. He has his mask off, she notices as he turns his terrible head towards the sound of her quiet crying, dark, lifeless eyes wet with unshed tears. Unlike the times before that she had seen him, she does not flinch. The corners of his twisted mouth turn in a tiny, pained smile.
"Do not…do not cry, …ma cherie," he whispers pleadingly. Gone is the rich and sensual voice that could overpower a hundred men or calm the most troubled heart. "It will be…over…soon, …I believe. No more…will you need…to think…of me again, ma petite… Remember…that from now on, your…family…" He coughs again and she dutifully rubs his bony chest to massage the ache away. "Your family…will always have…a guardian angel…watching over them. For your love, Christine, …your love that you showed to me—to love and be loved in return—was like a diamond shining in the darkness of my life, bright and full of fire."
And with that, he passes on, leaving but a dead husk, soulless and lifeless, over which Christine weeps.