account of an execution in
a newspaper? Don't they always set a lot of people at the
prisoner--lawyers, reporters, priests--to make him talk? But it's not
Mr. Newman's fault; he sits there as mum as a death's-head."

The doctor observed that it was time his patient's wound should be
dressed again; MM. de Grosjoyaux and Ledoux, who had already witnessed
this delicate operation, taking Newman's place as assistants. Newman
withdrew and learned from his fellow-watchers that they had received a
telegram from Urbain de Bellegarde to the effect that their message had
been delivered in the Rue de l'Universite too late to allow him to
take the morning train, but that he would start with his mother in the
evening. Newman wandered away into the village again, and walked about
restlessly for two or three hours. The day seemed terribly long. At dusk
he came back and dined with the doctor and M. Ledoux. The dressing of
Valentin's wound had been a very critical operation; the doctor didn't
really see how he was to endure a repetition of it. He then declared
that he must beg of Mr. Newman to deny himself for the present the
satisfaction of sitting with M. de Bellegarde; more than any one else,
apparently, he had the flattering but inconvenient privilege of exciting
him. M. Ledoux, at this, swallowed a glass of wine in silence; he must
have been wondering what the deuce Bellegarde found so exciting in the
American.

Newman, after dinner, went up to his room, where he sat for a long time
staring at his lighted candle, and thinking that Valentin was dying
down-stairs. Late, when the candle had burnt low, there came a soft rap
at his door. The doctor stood there with a candlestick and a shrug.

"He must amuse himself, still!" said Valentin's medical adviser. "He
insists upon seeing you, and I am afraid you must come. I think at this
rate, that he will hardly outlast the night."

Newman went back to Valentin's room, which he found lighted by a taper
on the hearth. Valentin begged him to light a candle. "I want to see
your face," he said. "They say you excite me," he went on, as Newman
complied with this request, "and I confess I do feel excited. But it
isn't you--it's my own thoughts. I have been thinking--thinking. Sit
down there, and let me look at you again." Newman seated himself, folded
his arms, and bent a heavy gaze upon his friend. He seemed to be playing
a part, mechanically, in a lugubrious comedy. Valentin looked at him for
s