s
so ill and you so affectionately nursed me?"

"Of course, of course I remember it! Why, I never had so good a patient
as you. You took all I offered you; and when I tucked you in, after
changing your linen, you remained as still as a little child."

So speaking, she continued looking at him, smiling ingenuously the while.
He was very handsome and robust, in the very prime of youth, with a
rather pronounced nose, superb eyes, and red lips showing under his black
moustache. But she seemed to be simply pleased at seeing him there before
her moved almost to tears.

"Ah! Sister, I should have died if it hadn't been for you," he said. "It
was through having you that I was cured."

Then, as they gazed at one another, with tender gaiety of heart, the
memory of that adorable month recurred to them. They no longer heard
Madame Vetu's death moans, nor beheld the ward littered with beds, and,
with all its disorder, resembling some infirmary improvised after a
public catastrophe. They once more found themselves in a small attic at
the top of a dingy house in old Paris, where air and light only reached
them through a tiny window opening on to a sea of roofs. And how charming
it was to be alone there together--he who had been prostrated by fever,
she who had appeared there like a good angel, who had quietly come from
her convent like a comrade who fears nothing! It was thus that she nursed
women, children, and men, as chance ordained, feeling perfectly happy so
long as she had something to do, some sufferer to relieve. She never
displayed any consciousness of her sex; and he, on his side, never seemed
to have suspected that she might be a woman, except it were for the
extreme softness of her hands, the caressing accents of her voice, the
beneficent gentleness of her manner; and yet all the tender love of a
mother, all the affection of a sister, radiated from her person. During
three weeks, as she had said, she had nursed him like a child, helping
him in and out of bed, and rendering him every necessary attention,
without the slightest embarrassment or repugnance, the holy purity born
of suffering and charity shielding them both the while. They were indeed
far removed from the frailties of life. And when he became convalescent,
what a happy existence began, how joyously they laughed, like two old
friends! She still watched over him, scolding him and gently slapping his
arms when he persisted in keeping them uncovered. He would wat