brought up blood, vitiated blood, the colour of claret. The rush was so
great that it bespattered the sheet, and ran all over the bed. In vain
did Madame de Jonquiere and Madame Desagneaux bring cloths; they were
both very pale and scarce able to remain standing. Ferrand, knowing how
powerless he was, had withdrawn to the window, to the very spot where he
had so lately experienced such delicious emotion; and with an instinctive
movement, of which she was surely unconscious, Sister Hyacinthe had
likewise returned to that happy window, as though to be near him.

"Really, can you do nothing?" she inquired.

"No, nothing! She will go off like that, in the same way as a lamp that
has burnt out."

Madame Vetu, who was now utterly exhausted, with a thin red stream still
flowing from her mouth, looked fixedly at Madame de Jonquiere whilst
faintly moving her lips. The lady-superintendent thereupon bent over her
and heard these slowly uttered words:

"About my husband, madame--the shop is in the Rue Mouffetard--oh! it's
quite a tiny one, not far from the Gobelins.--He's a clockmaker, he is;
he couldn't come with me, of course, having to attend to the business;
and he will be very much put out when he finds I don't come back.--Yes, I
cleaned the jewelry and did the errands--" Then her voice grew fainter,
her words disjointed by the death rattle, which began. "Therefore,
madame, I beg you will write to him, because I haven't done so, and now
here's the end.--Tell him my body had better remain here at Lourdes, on
account of the expense.--And he must marry again; it's necessary for one
in trade--his cousin--tell him his cousin--"

The rest became a confused murmur. Her weakness was too great, her breath
was halting. Yet her eyes continued open and full of life, amid her pale,
yellow, waxy mask. And those eyes seemed to fix themselves despairingly
on the past, on all that which soon would be no more: the little
clockmaker's shop hidden away in a populous neighbourhood; the gentle
humdrum existence, with a toiling husband who was ever bending over his
watches; the great pleasures of Sunday, such as watching children fly
their kites upon the fortifications. And at last these staring eyes gazed
vainly into the frightful night which was gathering.

A last time did Madame de Jonquiere lean over her, seeing that her lips
were again moving. There came but a faint breath, a voice from far away,
which distantly murmured in an accent of in