gal opinion, he coughed slightly, and then said in a dry little
voice:

"Madame, I shall have pleasure in calling on your husband. You have not
seen the matter in the true light. Madame, I bid you good-day."

That night the Avocat, true to his promise, called on Sergeant
Kilquhanity. Kilquhanity was alone in the house. His wife had gone to
the village for the Little Chemist. She had been roused at last to the
serious nature of Kilquhanity's illness.

M. Garon knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again more loudly,
and still no answer. He opened the door and entered into a clean, warm
living-room, so hot that the heat came to him in waves, buffeting his
face. Dining, sitting, and drawing-room, it was also a sort of winter
kitchen; and side by side with relics of Kilquhanity's soldier-life
were clean, bright tins, black saucepans, strings of dried fruit, and
well-cured hams. Certainly the place had the air of home; it spoke for
the absent termagant.

M. Garon looked round and saw a half-opened door, through which
presently came a voice speaking in a laboured whisper. The Avocat
knocked gently at the door. "May I come in, Sergeant?" he asked, and
entered. There was no light in the room, but the fire in the kitchen
stove threw a glow over the bed where the sick man lay. The big hands of
the soldier moved restlessly on the quilt.

"Aw, it's the koind av ye!" said Kilquhanity, with difficulty, out of
the half shadows.

The Avocat took one burning hand in both of his, held it for a moment,
and pressed it two or three times. He did not know what to say.

"We must have a light," said he at last, and taking a candle from the
shelf he lighted it at the stove and came into the bedroom again. This
time he was startled. Even in this short illness, Kilquhanity's flesh
had dropped away from him, leaving him but a bundle of bones, on which
the skin quivered with fever. Every word the sick man tried to speak cut
his chest like a knife, and his eyes half started from his head with the
agony of it. The Avocat's heart sank within him, for he saw that a life
was hanging in the balance. Not knowing what to do, he tucked in the
bedclothes gently.

"I do be thinkin'," said the strained, whispering voice--"I do be
thinkin' I could shmoke."

The Avocat looked round the room, saw the pipe on the window, and
cutting some tobacco from a "plug," he tenderly filled the old black
corn-cob. Then he put the stem in Kilquhanity's mouth and