us, and Newman could feel nothing but the hardness and coldness
of death. He got up and came back to the inn, where he found M. Ledoux
having coffee and a cigarette at a little green table which he had
caused to be carried into the small garden. Newman, learning that the
doctor was still sitting with Valentin, asked M. Ledoux if he might not
be allowed to relieve him; he had a great desire to be useful to his
poor friend. This was easily arranged; the doctor was very glad to go
to bed. He was a youthful and rather jaunty practitioner, but he had a
clever face, and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole;
Newman listened attentively to the instructions he gave him before
retiring, and took mechanically from his hand a small volume which the
surgeon recommended as a help to wakefulness, and which turned out to be
an old copy of "Faublas." Valentin was still lying with his eyes closed,
and there was no visible change in his condition. Newman sat down near
him, and for a long time narrowly watched him. Then his eyes wandered
away with his thoughts upon his own situation, and rested upon the chain
of the Alps, disclosed by the drawing of the scant white cotton curtain
of the window, through which the sunshine passed and lay in squares upon
the red-tiled floor. He tried to interweave his reflections with hope,
but he only half succeeded. What had happened to him seemed to have, in
its violence and audacity, the force of a real calamity--the strength
and insolence of Destiny herself. It was unnatural and monstrous, and he
had no arms against it. At last a sound struck upon the stillness, and
he heard Valentin's voice.

"It can't be about me you are pulling that long face!" He found, when he
turned, that Valentin was lying in the same position; but his eyes
were open, and he was even trying to smile. It was with a very slender
strength that he returned the pressure of Newman's hand. "I have been
watching you for a quarter of an hour," Valentin went on; "you have been
looking as black as thunder. You are greatly disgusted with me, I see.
Well, of course! So am I!"

"Oh, I shall not scold you," said Newman. "I feel too badly. And how are
you getting on?"

"Oh, I'm getting off! They have quite settled that; haven't they?"

"That's for you to settle; you can get well if you try," said Newman,
with resolute cheerfulness.

"My dear fellow, how can I try? Trying is violent exercise, and that
sort of thing isn't in ord