ntinued, hastening her last hour.

She recognized Jacques and wished to raise her arms. They were so weak
that she could not do so, but tears coursed down her pallid cheeks. He
dropped to his knees beside the bed, seized one of her hands and kissed
it frantically. Then, little by little, he drew close to the thin face,
which started at the contact. One of the nurses was lighting them with a
candle, and the doctor was watching them from the back of the room.

Then she said in a voice which sounded as though it came from a
distance: "I am going to die, dear. Promise to stay to the end. Oh!
don't leave me now. Don't leave me in my last moments!"

He kissed her face and her hair, and, weeping, he murmured: "Do not be
uneasy; I will stay."

It was several minutes before she could speak again, she was so weak.
She continued: "The little one is yours. I swear it before God and on my
soul. I swear it as I am dying! I have never loved another man but you
--promise to take care of the child."

He was trying to take this poor pain-racked body in his arms. Maddened
by remorse and sorrow, he stammered: "I swear to you that I will bring
him up and love him. He shall never leave me."

Then she tried to kiss Jacques. Powerless to lift her head, she held
out her white lips in an appeal for a kiss. He approached his lips to
respond to this piteous entreaty.

As soon as she felt a little calmer, she murmured: "Bring him here and
let me see if you love him."

He went and got the child. He placed him gently on the bed between them,
and the little one stopped crying. She murmured: "Don't move any more!"
And he was quiet. And he stayed there, holding in his burning hand this
other hand shaking in the chill of death, just as, a while ago, he had
been holding a hand trembling with love. From time to time he would cast
a quick glance at the clock, which marked midnight, then one o'clock,
then two.

The physician had returned. The two nurses, after noiselessly moving
about the room for a while, were now sleeping on chairs. The child was
asleep, and the mother, with eyes shut, appeared also to be resting.

Suddenly, just as pale daylight was creeping in behind the curtains,
she stretched out her arms with such a quick and violent motion that she
almost threw her baby on the floor. A kind of rattle was heard in her
throat, then she lay on her back motionless, dead.

The nurses sprang forward and declared: "All is over!"

He looked onc