ask your wife if she will nurse M. Pons, and
look after M. Schmucke, and take Mme. Cibot's place for a day or two....
Even without the quarrel, Mme. Cibot would still require a substitute.
Mme. Cantinet is honest," added the doctor, turning to M. Duplanty.

"You could not make a better choice," said the good priest; "she is
intrusted with the letting of chairs in the church."

A few minutes later, Dr. Poulain stood by Pons' pillow watching the
progress made by death, and Schmucke's vain efforts to persuade his
friend to consent to the operation. To all the poor German's despairing
entreaties Pons only replied by a shake of the head and occasional
impatient movements; till, after awhile, he summoned up all his
fast-failing strength to say, with a heartrending look:

"Do let me die in peace!"

Schmucke almost died of sorrow, but he took Pons' hand and softly kissed
it, and held it between his own, as if trying a second time to give his
own vitality to his friend.

Just at this moment the bell rang, and Dr. Poulain, going to the door,
admitted the Abbe Duplanty.

"Our poor patient is struggling in the grasp of death," he said. "All
will be over in a few hours. You will send a priest, no doubt, to watch
to-night. But it is time that Mme. Cantinet came, as well as a woman to
do the work, for M. Schmucke is quite unfit to think of anything: I am
afraid for his reason; and there are valuables here which ought to be in
the custody of honest persons."

The Abbe Duplanty, a kindly, upright priest, guileless and unsuspicious,
was struck with the truth of Dr. Poulain's remarks. He had, moreover, a
certain belief in the doctor of the quarter. So on the threshold of the
death-chamber he stopped and beckoned to Schmucke, but Schmucke could
not bring himself to loosen the grasp of the hand that grew tighter and
tighter. Pons seemed to think that he was slipping over the edge of
a precipice and must catch at something to save himself. But, as many
know, the dying are haunted by an hallucination that leads them to
snatch at things about them, like men eager to save their most precious
possessions from a fire. Presently Pons released Schmucke to clutch at
the bed-clothes, dragging them and huddling them about himself with a
hasty, covetous movement significant and painful to see.

"What will you do, left alone with your dead friend?" asked M. l'Abbe
Duplanty when Schmucke came to the door. "You have not Mme. Cibot now--"

"Ein