ntered the bed-chamber than
by a glance he gathered how Jeanne had spent the night; and there was
no need for him to speak for Helene to learn what he thought of the
child's condition. Besides, with all the innate bravery of a mother,
she had forced from him a declaration that he would not deceive her,
but allow her to know his fears. Always on her feet, not having had
three hours' uninterrupted sleep for three weeks past, she displayed
superhuman endurance and composure, and quelled her despair without a
tear in order that she might concentrate her whole soul upon the
struggle with the dread enemy. Within and without her heart there was
nothing but emptiness; the world around her, the usual thoughts of
each hour, the consciousness of life itself, had all faded into
darkness. Existence held nothing for her. Nothing now bound her to
life but her suffering darling and this man who promised her a
miracle. It was he, and he only, to whom she looked, to whom she
listened, whose most trivial words were to her of the first
importance, and into whose breast she would fain have transfused her
own soul in order to increase his energy. Insensibly, and without
break, this idea wrought out its own accomplishment. Almost every
evening, when the fever was raging at its worst and Jeanne lay in
imminent peril, they were there beside her in silence; and as though
eager to remind themselves that they stood shoulder to shoulder
struggling against death, their hands met on the edge of the bed in a
caressing clasp, while they trembled with solicitude and pity till a
faint smile breaking over the child's face, and the sound of quiet and
regular breathing, told them that the danger was past. Then each
encouraged the other by an inclination of the head. Once again had
their love triumphed; and every time the mute caress grew more
demonstrative their hearts drew closer together.

One night Helene divined that Henri was concealing something from her.
For ten minutes, without a word crossing his lips, he had been
examining Jeanne. The little one complained of intolerable thirst; she
seemed choking, and there was an incessant wheezing in her parched
throat. Then a purple flush came over her face, and she lapsed into a
stupor which prevented her even from raising her eyelids. She lay
motionless; it might have been imagined she was dead but for the sound
coming from her throat.

"You consider her very ill, do you not?" gasped Helene.

He answered