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. Madame Jules always found strength to
smile at her husband. She pitied him, knowing that soon he would be
alone. It was a double death,--that of life, that of love; but life grew
feebler, and love grew mightier. One frightful night there was, when
Clemence passed through that delirium which precedes the death of youth.
She talked of her happy love, she talked of her father; she related her
mother's revelations on her death-bed, and the obligations that mother
had laid upon her. She struggled, not for life, but for her love which
she could not leave.

"Grant, O God!" she said, "that he may not know I want him to die with
me."

Jules, unable to bear the scene, was at that moment in the adjoining
room, and did not hear the prayer, which he would doubtless have
fulfilled.

When this crisis was over, Madame Jules recovered some strength. The
next day she was beautiful and tranquil; hope seemed to come to her; she
adorned herself, as the dying often do. Then she asked to be alone all
day, and sent away her husband with one of those entreaties made so
earnestly that they are granted as we grant the prayer of a little
child.

Jules, indeed, had need of this day. He went to Monsieur de Maulincour
to demand the satisfaction agreed upon between them. It was not without
great difficulty that he succeeded in reaching the presence of the
author of these misfortunes; but the vidame, when he