ker, its contractions becoming feebler and slower. Instead
of the normal jet of blood there now issued from the aorta only a red
froth. Back of it all the veins were engorged with black blood; the
suffocation increased, according as the lift and force pump, the
regulator of the whole machine, moved more slowly. And after the
injection he had been able to follow in spite of his suffering the
gradual reviving of the organ as the stimulus set it beating again,
removing the black venous blood, and sending life into it anew, with
the red arterial blood. But the attack would return as soon as the
mechanical effect of the injection should cease. He could predict it
almost within a few minutes. Thanks to the injections he would have
three attacks more. The third would carry him off; he would die at four
o'clock.

Then, while his voice grew gradually weaker, in a last outburst of
enthusiasm, he apostrophized the courage of the heart, that persistent
life maker, working ceaselessly, even during sleep, when the other
organs rested.

"Ah, brave heart! how heroically you struggle! What faithful, what
generous muscles, never wearied! You have loved too much, you have beat
too fast in the past months, and that is why you are breaking now,
brave heart, who do not wish to die, and who strive rebelliously to beat
still!"

But now the first of the attacks which had been announced came on.
Pascal came out of this panting, haggard, his speech sibilant and
painful. Low moans escaped him, in spite of his courage. Good God! would
this torture never end? And yet his most ardent desire was to prolong
his agony, to live long enough to embrace Clotilde a last time. If he
might only be deceiving himself, as Ramond persisted in declaring. If he
might only live until five o'clock. His eyes again turned to the clock,
they never now left the hands, every minute seeming an eternity. They
marked three o'clock. Then half-past three. Ah, God! only two hours of
life, two hours more of life. The sun was already sinking toward the
horizon; a great calm descended from the pale winter sky, and he heard
at intervals the whistles of the distant locomotives crossing the bare
plain. The train that was passing now was the one going to the Tulettes;
the other, the one coming from Marseilles, would it never arrive, then!

At twenty minutes to four Pascal signed to Ramond to approach. He could
no longer speak loud enough to be heard.

"You see, in order that I mi