ished, the wounded man moved his fingers,
opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around his troubled, haggard
glances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to
understand, and he murmured:

"Ah! good God! this has done for me!"

The doctor held his hand.

"Why no, why no, some days of rest merely--it will be nothing."

Hautot returned:

"It has done for me! My stomach is split! I know it well."

Then, all of a sudden:

"I want to talk to the son, if I have the time."

Hautot Junior, in spite of himself, shed tears, and kept repeating like
a little boy.

"P'pa, p'pa, poor p'ps!"

But the father, in a firmer tone:

"Come! stop crying--this is not the time for it. I have to talk to you.
Sit down there quite close to me. It will be quickly done, and I will be
more calm. As for the rest of you, kindly give me one minute."

They all went out, leaving the father and son face to face.

As soon as they were alone:

"Listen, son! you are twenty-four years; one can say things like this to
you. And then there is not such mystery about these matters as we import
into them. You know well that your mother is seven years dead, isn't
that so? and that I am not more than forty-five years myself, seeing
that I got married at nineteen. Is not that true?"

The son faltered:

"Yes, it is true."

"So then your mother is seven years dead, and I have remained a widower.
Well! a man like me cannot remain without a wife at thirty-seven isn't
that true?"

The son replied:

"Yes, it is true."

The father, out of breath, quite pale, and his face contracted with
suffering, went on:

"God! what pain I feel! Well, you understand. Man is not made to live
alone, but I did not want to take a successor to your mother, since I
promised her not to do so. Then--you understand?"

"Yes, father."

"So, I kept a young girl at Rouen, Reu de l'Eperlan 18, in the third
story, the second door--I tell you all this, don't forget--but a young
girl, who has been very nice to me, loving, devoted, a true woman, eh?
You comprehend, my lad?"

"Yes, father."

"So then, if I am carried off, I owe something to her, but something
substantial, that will place her in a safe position. You understand?"

"Yes, father."

"I tell you that she is an honest girl, and that, but for you, and the
remembrance of your mother, and again but for the house in which we
three lived, I would have brought her here, and then married her, for