re to his pillow.

"Turn up the light, will you?" requested Monte.

"But certainly not," answered the nurse. "Monsieur is to lie very
quiet and sleep."

"I can't sleep."

"Perhaps it will help monsieur to be quiet if he knows his fiancee is
in the next room."

Momentarily this announcement appeared to have directly the opposite
effect.

"My what?" gasped Monte.

"Monsieur's fiancee. With her maid, she is occupying the next
apartment in order to be near monsieur. If you are very quiet
to-night, it is possible that to-morrow the doctor will permit you to
see her."

"Was that she who came in and whispered to you?"

"Yes, monsieur."

Monte remained quiet after that--but he was not sleeping. He was
thinking.

In the first place, this was enough to make him recall all that had
happened. This led him to speculate on all that might be about to
happen--how much he could not at that moment even imagine. Neither
line of thought was conducive to sleep.

Marjory was in the next room, awake, and at the sound of his voice had
come in. In the dark, even with this great night city of Paris asleep
around him, she had come near enough so that he heard the rustle of her
skirt and her whispering voice. That was unusual--most unusual--and
rather satisfactory. If worse came to worse and he reached a point
where it was necessary for him to talk to some one, he could get her in
here again in spite of this nurse woman. He had only to call her name.
Not that he really had any intention in the world of doing it. The
idea rather embarrassed him. He would not know what to say to a young
lady at this hour of the night--even Marjory. But there she was--some
one from home, some one he knew and who knew him. It was like having
Edhart within reach.

In this last week he had sometimes awakened as he was now awake, and
the silence had oppressed him. Ordinarily there was nothing morbid
about Monte, but Edhart's death and the big empty space that was left
all about Nice, the silence where once he had been so sure of hearing
Edhart's voice, the ghostly reminders of Edhart in those who clicked
about in Edhart's bones without his flesh--all these things had given
Monte's thoughts an occasional novel trend.

Once or twice he had gone as far as to picture himself as upon the
point of death here in this foreign city. It was a very sad, a
melancholy thing to speak about. He might call until he was hoarse,
and no one would answe