me
considerable astonishment, and throw me into a state of great agitation.
My attacks had been so violent that evening that I had no strength left.
I abandoned myself, therefore, to my melancholy ravings, and, taking the
good man's hand, I asked him if it was really Edmee's corpse that he had
placed in the arm-chair by my bedside.

"It is Edmee's living self," he answered, in a low voice; "but she is
still asleep, my dear monsieur, and we must not wake her. If there is
anything you would like, I am here to attend to you, and right gladly I
do it."

"My good Patience, you are deceiving me," I said; "she is dead, and
so am I, and you have come to bury us. But you must put us in the same
coffin, do you hear? for we are betrothed. Where is her ring? Take it
off and put it on my finger; our wedding-night has come."

He tried in vain to dispel this hallucination. I held to my belief that
Edmee was dead, and declared that I should never be quiet in my shroud
until I had been given my wife's ring. Edmee, who had sat up with me
for several nights, was so exhausted that our voices did not awaken
her. Besides, I was speaking in a whisper, like Patience, with that
instinctive tendency to imitate which is met with only in children or
idiots. I persisted in my fancy, and Patience, who was afraid that it
might turn into madness, went and very carefully removed a cornelian
ring from one of Edmee's fingers and put it on mine. As soon as I felt
it there, I carried it to my lips; and then with my arms crossed on my
breast, in the manner of a corpse in a coffin, I fell into a deep sleep.

On the morrow when they tried to take the ring from me I resisted
violently, and they abandoned the attempt. I fell asleep again and the
abbe removed it during my sleep. But when I opened my eyes I noticed the
theft, and once more began to rave. Edmee, who was in the room, ran
to me at once and pressed the ring over my finger, at the same time
rebuking the abbe. I immediately grew calm, and gazing, on her with
lack-lustre eyes, said:

"Is it not true that you are my wife in death as in life?"

"Certainly," she replied. "Set your mind at rest."

"Eternity is long," I said, "and I should like to spend it in recalling
your caresses. But I send my thoughts back in vain; they bring me no
remembrance of your love."

She leant over and gave me a kiss.

"Edmee, that is very wrong," said the abbe; "such remedies turn to
poison."

"Let me do as I like