way. After this, the young doctor
applied a blister, and awaited the result.

The flame of the lamps, obscured by some of the furniture, lighted up
the apartment in an irregular fashion. Frederick and Madame Dambreuse,
at the foot of the bed, watched the dying man. In the recess of a window
the priest and the doctor chatted in low tones. The good sister on her
knees kept mumbling prayers.

At last came a rattling in the throat. The hands grew cold; the face
began to turn white. Now and then he drew a deep breath all of a
sudden; but gradually this became rarer and rarer. Two or three confused
words escaped him. He turned his eyes upward, and at the same moment his
respiration became so feeble that it was almost imperceptible. Then his
head sank on one side on the pillow.

For a minute, all present remained motionless.

Madame Dambreuse advanced towards the dead body of her husband, and,
without an effort--with the unaffectedness of one discharging a
duty--she drew down the eyelids. Then she spread out her two arms, her
figure writhing as if in a spasm of repressed despair, and quitted the
room, supported by the physician and the nun.

A quarter of an hour afterwards, Frederick made his way up to her
apartment.

There was in it an indefinable odour, emanating from some delicate
substances with which it was filled. In the middle of the bed lay a
black dress, which formed a glaring contrast with the pink coverlet.

Madame Dambreuse was standing at the corner of the mantelpiece. Without
attributing to her any passionate regret, he thought she looked a little
sad; and, in a mournful voice, he said:

"You are enduring pain?"

"I? No--not at all."

As she turned around, her eyes fell on the dress, which she inspected.
Then she told him not to stand on ceremony.

"Smoke, if you like! You can make yourself at home with me!"

And, with a great sigh:

"Ah! Blessed Virgin!--what a riddance!"

Frederick was astonished at this exclamation. He replied, as he kissed
her hand:

"All the same, you were free!"

This allusion to the facility with which the intrigue between them had
been carried on hurt Madame Dambreuse.

"Ah! you don't know the services that I did for him, or the misery in
which I lived!"

"What!"

"Why, certainly! Was it a safe thing to have always near him that
bastard, a daughter, whom he introduced into the house at the end of
five years of married life, and who, were it not for me, might have