lked with short, hasty steps, while he strode on
with his long legs, as if he were crossing a brook at every step. The
cows lying down in the fields, overcome by the heat, raised their heads
heavily and lowed feebly at the two passers-by, as if to ask them for
some green grass.

When they got near the house, Honore Bontemps murmured: "Suppose it is
all over?" And the unconscious wish that it might be so showed itself
in the sound of his voice.

But the old woman was not dead. She was lying on her back, on her
wretched bed, her hands covered with a pink cotton counterpane,
horribly thin, knotty paws, like some strange animal's, or like crabs'
claws, hands closed by rheumatism, fatigue, and the work of nearly a
century which she had accomplished.

La Rapet went up to the bed and looked at the dying woman, felt her
pulse, tapped her on the chest, listened to her breathing, and asked
her questions, so as to hear her speak: then, having looked at her for
some time longer, she went out of the room, followed by Honore. His
decided opinion was, that the old woman would not last out the night,
and he asked: "Well?" And the sick-nurse replied: "Well, she may last
two days, perhaps three. You will have to give me six francs,
everything included."

"Six francs! six francs!" he shouted. "Are you out of your mind? I tell
you that she cannot last more than five or six hours!" And they
disputed angrily for some time, but as the nurse said she would go
home, as the time was slipping away, and as his wheat would not come to
the farmyard of its own accord, he agreed to her terms at last:

"Very well, then, that is settled; six francs including everything,
until the corpse is taken out."

"That is settled, six francs."

And he went away, with long strides, to his wheat, which was lying on
the ground under the hot sun which ripens the grain, while the
sick-nurse returned to the house.

She had brought some work with her, for she worked without stopping by
the side of the dead and dying, sometimes for herself, sometimes for
the family, who employed her as seamstress also, paying her rather more
in that capacity. Suddenly she asked:

"Have you received the last sacrament, Mother Bontemps?"

The old peasant woman said "No" with her head, and La Rapet, who was
very devout, got up quickly: "Good heavens, is it possible? I will go
and fetch the cure"; and she rushed off to the parsonage so quickly,
that the urchins in the street thou