is to me the most precious thing there. Though enchanted
with my first success, never did the least sign, the least word, escape
him which might imply, 'This man owes all to me!' And yet, but for him,
I should have died of want; he had eaten bread rubbed with garlic that I
might have coffee to enable me to sit up at night.

"He fell ill. As you may suppose, I passed my nights by his bedside,
and the first time I pulled him through; but two years after he had a
relapse; in spite of the utmost care, in spite of the greatest exertions
of science, he succumbed. No king was ever nursed as he was. Yes,
Bianchon, to snatch that man from death I tried unheard-of things. I
wanted him to live long enough to show him his work accomplished, to
realize all his hopes, to give expression to the only need for gratitude
that ever filled my heart, to quench a fire that burns in me to this
day.

"Bourgeat, my second father, died in my arms," Desplein went on, after
a pause, visibly moved. "He left me everything he possessed by a will
he had had made by a public scrivener, dating from the year when we had
gone to live in the Cour de Rohan.

"This man's faith was perfect; he loved the Holy Virgin as he might have
loved his wife. He was an ardent Catholic, but never said a word to me
about my want of religion. When he was dying he entreated me to spare
no expense that he might have every possible benefit of clergy. I had
a mass said for him every day. Often, in the night, he would tell me of
his fears as to his future fate; he feared his life had not been saintly
enough. Poor man! he was at work from morning till night. For whom,
then, is Paradise--if there be a Paradise? He received the last
sacrament like the saint that he was, and his death was worthy of his
life.

"I alone followed him to the grave. When I had laid my only benefactor
to rest, I looked about to see how I could pay my debt to him; I found
he had neither family nor friends, neither wife nor child. But he
believed. He had a religious conviction; had I any right to dispute it?
He had spoken to me timidly of masses said for the repose of the dead;
he would not impress it on me as a duty, thinking that it would be a
form of repayment for his services. As soon as I had money enough I paid
to Saint-Sulpice the requisite sum for four masses every year. As the
only thing I can do for Bourgeat is thus to satisfy his pious wishes, on
the days when that mass is said, at the begin