to speak, he said:

"It was I who took the despatch you received to the telegraph office
yesterday, at half-past ten o'clock. He was so happy, so full of hope!
He was forming plans for the future--a year, two years of life. And this
morning, at four o'clock, he had the first attack, and he sent for me.
He saw at once that he was doomed, but he expected to last until
six o'clock, to live long enough to see you again. But the disease
progressed too rapidly. He described its progress to me, minute by
minute, like a professor in the dissecting room. He died with your name
upon his lips, calm, but full of anguish, like a hero."

Clotilde listened, her eyes drowned in tears which flowed endlessly.
Every word of the relation of this piteous and stoical death penetrated
her heart and stamped itself there. She reconstructed every hour of the
dreadful day. She followed to its close its grand and mournful drama.
She would live it over in her thoughts forever.

But her despairing grief overflowed when Martine, who had entered the
room a moment before, said in a harsh voice:

"Ah, mademoiselle has good reason to cry! for if monsieur is dead,
mademoiselle is to blame for it."

The old servant stood apart, near the door of her kitchen, in such a
passion of angry grief, because they had taken her master from her,
because they had killed him, that she did not even try to find a word
of welcome or consolation for this child whom she had brought up. And
without calculating the consequences of her indiscretion, the grief or
the joy which she might cause, she relieved herself by telling all she
knew.

"Yes, if monsieur has died, it is because mademoiselle went away."

From the depths of her overpowering grief Clotilde protested. She had
expected to see Martine weeping with her, like Ramond, and she was
surprised to feel that she was an enemy.

"Why, it was he who would not let me stay, who insisted upon my going
away," she said.

"Oh, well! mademoiselle must have been willing to go or she would
have been more clear-sighted. The night before your departure I found
monsieur half-suffocated with grief; and when I wished to inform
mademoiselle, he himself prevented me; he had such courage. Then I could
see it all, after mademoiselle had gone. Every night it was the same
thing over again, and he could hardly keep from writing to you to come
back. In short, he died of it, that is the pure truth."

A great light broke in on Clotilde's