or the sun; twenty times a day would she go to the window on the
landing to scan the sky, delighted at the smallest scrap of white that
she espied, but perturbed when she perceived any dusky, copper-tinted,
hail-laden masses, and ever dreading lest some sable cloud should kill
her dear patient. She talked of sending for Doctor Pascal, but Serge
would not have it.

'To-morrow there will be sunlight on the curtains,' he said, 'and then I
shall be well again.'

One evening when his condition was most alarming, Albine again gave him
her hand to rest his cheek upon. But when she saw that it brought him no
relief she wept to find herself powerless. Since he had fallen into the
lethargy of winter she had felt too weak to drag him unaided from the
nightmare in which he was struggling. She needed the assistance of
spring. She herself was fading away, her arms grew cold, her breath
scant; she no longer knew how to breathe life into him. For hours
together she would roam about the spacious dismal room, and as she
passed before the mirror and saw herself darkening in it, she thought
she had become hideous.

One morning, however, as she raised his pillows, not daring to try again
the broken spell of her hands, she fancied that she once more caught the
first day's smile on Serge's lips.

'Open the shutters,' he said faintly.

She thought him still delirious, for only an hour previously she had
seen but a gloomy sky on looking out from the landing.

'Hush, go to sleep,' she answered sadly; 'I have promised to wake you at
the very first ray---- Sleep on, there's no sun out yet.'

'Yes, I can feel it, its light is there.... Open the shutters.'

III

And there, indeed, the sunlight was. When Albine had opened the
shutters, behind the large curtains, the genial yellow glow once more
warmed a patch of the white calico. But that which impelled Serge to sit
up in bed was the sight of the shadowy bough, the branch that for him
heralded the return of life. All the resuscitated earth, with its wealth
of greenery, its waters, and its belts of hills, was in that greenish
blur that quivered with the faintest breath of air. It no longer
disturbed him; he greedily watched it rocking, and hungered for the
fortified powers of the vivifying sap which to him it symbolised.
Albine, happy once more, exclaimed, as she supported him in her arms:
'Ah! my dear Serge, the winter is over. Now we are saved.'

He lay down again, his eyes already