and then upon another, would permit.

But when Madeleine learned Gaston's friendly proposition, she answered,
"We shall not need you. Maurice is hardly experienced enough for me to
trust him just yet. I intend to sit up to-night; to-morrow night Maurice
must rest, at least part of the night, and then, M. de Bois, we will be
glad to claim you as a watcher."

There was no appeal from Madeleine's decision. She exerted a mild
authority which was too potent for argument.

After Gaston departed, Madeleine, for a brief space, left Maurice alone
with his father. When she stole back to her place at the head of the
bed, she was attired in a white cambric wrapper, lightly girded at the
waist; a blue shawl of some soft material fell in graceful folds about
her form. She had entered with such a soundless step, that when Maurice
saw her sitting before him, he started, and his breath grew labored, as
though, for a second, he fancied that he gazed upon some unreal shape.
The flowing white drapery, and the delicate azure folds of the shawl
helped the illusion, which her musical voice would scarcely have
dispelled, but for the sense of reality produced by the words she
uttered.

"It is just eleven; that is the hour at which the medicine was to be
given."

She took up the cup and administered a spoonful of its contents, before
Maurice had quite recovered himself.

The silence which followed did not last long. Madeleine began to
question Maurice concerning his life in America, his opinions, his
experiences, the people he had known and esteemed; and he responded, in
subdued tones, by a long narrative of past events.

It was the first time that Maurice had been called upon to watch beside
a bed of sickness, and his was one of those vivacious temperaments to
which sleep is so indispensable that an overpowering somnolence will
fling its charms about the senses, and bear the spirit away captive,
even in the soul's most unwilling moments. Five o'clock had struck when
Madeleine perceived that her companion's eyes had grown heavy, and that
he was making a desperate struggle to keep them open. With womanly tact
she leaned her elbow on the bed, and rested her forehead on her hand, in
such a manner that her face was concealed, and thus avoided any further
conversation. In less than ten minutes, the sound of clear but regular
breathing apprised her that Maurice had fallen asleep.

When she looked up, at first timidly, but soon with security,