pulpit, or in the
confessional. There only am I the minister of God. Here, my Sister, here
I am but a weak man, a miserable sinner."

"That does not signify; you are always God's minister, and you cannot,
you would not, refuse me; he is at the point of death."

She fell on her knees as she spoke. The priest blessed her, and added:--

"It is nearly eleven o'clock, Sister; you have nearly three miles to get
home, all Paris to cross at this late hour."

"Oh, I am not afraid," replied Philomene with a smile; "God knows why I
am in the street. Moreover, I will tell my beads on the way. The Blessed
Virgin will be with me."...

The same evening, Barnier, rousing himself from a silence that had
lasted the whole day, said to Malivoire, "You will write to my mother.
You will tell her that this often happens in our profession."

"But you are not yet as bad as all that, my dear fellow," replied
Malivoire, bending over the bed. "I am sure I shall save you."

"No, I chose my man too well for that. How well I took you in, my poor
Malivoire!" and he smiled almost. "You understand, I could not kill
myself. I did not wish to be the death of my old mother. But an
accident--that settles everything. You will take all my books, do you
hear? and my case of instruments also. I wish you to have all. You
wonder why I have killed myself, don't you? Come nearer. It is on
account of that woman. I never loved but her in all my life. They did
not give her enough chloroform; I told them so. Ah! if you had heard her
scream when she awoke--before it was over! That scream still re-echoes
in my ears! However," he continued, after a nervous spasm, "if I had to
begin again, I would choose some other way of dying, some way in which I
should not suffer so much. Then, you know, she died, and I fancied I had
killed her. She is ever before me,... covered with blood.... And then I
took to drinking. I drank because I love her still.... That's all!"

Barnier relapsed into silence. After a long pause, he again spoke, and
said to Malivoire:--

"You will tell my mother to take care of the little lad."

After another pause, the following words escaped him:--

"The Sister would have said a prayer."

Shortly after, he asked:--

"What o'clock is it?"

"Eleven."

"Time is not up yet;... I have still some hours to live.... I shall last
till to-morrow."

A little later he again inquired the time, and crossing his hands on his
breast, in a faint voice he c