count it a great kindness, madame, if you would moisten
a napkin and let me have it."

Gilberte sped away and quickly returned with the napkin, with which she
herself cleansed the hands of the dying man. Thenceforth, desirous of
quitting the scene with dignity, he displayed much firmness. Delaherche
did what he could to cheer him, and assisted his wife in the small
attentions she offered for his comfort. Old Mme. Delaherche, too,
in presence of the man whose hours were numbered, felt her enmity
subsiding. She would be silent, she who knew all and had sworn to impart
her knowledge to her son. What would it avail to excite discord in the
household, since death would soon obliterate all trace of the wrong?

The end came very soon. Captain Beaudoin, whose strength was ebbing
rapidly, relapsed into his comatose condition, and a cold sweat broke
out and stood in beads upon his neck and forehead. He opened his eyes
again, and began to feebly grope about him with his stiffening fingers,
as if feeling for a covering that was not there, pulling at it with a
gentle, continuous movement, as if to draw it up around his shoulders.

"It is cold--Oh! it is so cold."

And so he passed from life, peacefully, without a struggle; and on his
wasted, tranquil face rested an expression of unspeakable melancholy.

Delaherche saw to it that the remains, instead of being borne away and
placed among the common dead, were deposited in one of the outbuildings
of the factory. He endeavored to prevail on Gilberte, who was tearful
and disconsolate, to retire to her apartment, but she declared that to
be alone now would be more than her nerves could stand, and begged to
be allowed to remain with her mother-in-law in the ambulance, where the
noise and movement would be a distraction to her. She was seen presently
running to carry a drink of water to a chasseur d'Afrique whom his fever
had made delirious, and she assisted a hospital steward to dress the
hand of a little recruit, a lad of twenty, who had had his thumb shot
away and come in on foot from the battlefield; and as he was jolly and
amusing, treating his wound with all the levity and nonchalance of the
Parisian rollicker, she was soon laughing and joking as merrily as he.

While the captain lay dying the cannonade seemed, if that were possible,
to have increased in violence; another shell had landed in the garden,
shattering one of the old elms. Terror-stricken men came running in to
say th