hom he
had killed. The presentiment of death struck both their minds with equal
force. Their looks were blended in one anguish, as their hearts had long
been blended in one love, felt equally by both, and shared equally. No
questions were uttered; a horrible certainty was there,--in the wife
an absolute generosity; in the husband an awful remorse; then, in both
souls the same vision of the end, the same conviction of fatality.

There came a moment when, thinking his wife asleep, Jules kissed her
softly on the forehead; then after long contemplation of that cherished
face, he said:--

"Oh God! leave me this angel still a little while that I may blot out my
wrong by love and adoration. As a daughter, she is sublime; as a wife,
what word can express her?"

Clemence raised her eyes; they were full of tears.

"You pain me," she said, in a feeble voice.

It was getting late; Doctor Haudry came, and requested the husband to
withdraw during his visit. When the doctor left the sick-room Jules
asked him no question; one gesture was enough.

"Call in consultation any physician in whom you place confidence; I may
be wrong."

"Doctor, tell me the truth. I am a man, and I can bear it. Besides,
I have the deepest interest in knowing it; I have certain affairs to
settle."

"Madame Jules is dying," said the physician. "There is some moral malady
which has made great progress, and it has complicated her physical
condition, which was already dangerous, and made still more so by her
great imprudence. To walk about barefooted at night! to go out when I
forbade it! on foot yesterday in the rain, to-day in a carriage! She
must have meant to kill herself. But still, my judgment is not final;
she has youth, and a most amazing nervous strength. It may be best to
risk all to win all by employing some violent reagent. But I will not
take upon myself to order it; nor will I advise it; in consultation I
shall oppose it."

Jules returned to his wife. For eleven days and eleven nights he
remained beside her bed, taking no sleep during the day when he laid his
head upon the foot of the bed. No man ever pushed the jealousy of care
and the craving for devotion to such an extreme as he. He could not
endure that the slightest service should be done by others for his wife.
There were days of uncertainty, false hopes, now a little better, then
a crisis,--in short, all the horrible mutations of death as it wavers,
hesitates, and finally strikes. M