se is ready. Come when you
will." Not a word in reply. The desertion was final and absolute.

Jack was in great grief. When our mothers do us harm, it wounds and
grieves us, and seems like a direct cruelty from the hand of God. But
Cecile was the magician to cure him; she knew just the words to use,
and her delicate tenderness defied the rough trials of destiny. A great
resource to him at this time was hard work, which is one's best defence
against sorrow and regrets. While his mother had been with him, she,
without knowing it, had often prevented him from working. Her indecision
had been at times very harassing. She sometimes was all ready to go out,
with hat and shawl on, when she would suddenly decide to remain at home.
Now that she was gone, he took rapid strides and regained his lost time.
Each Sunday he went to Etiolles; he was at once more in love, and wiser.
The doctor was delighted with the progress of his pupil; before a year
was over, he said, if he went on in this way, he could take his degree.

These words thrilled Jack with joy, and when he repeated them to
Belisaire, the little attic positively glowed and palpitated with
happiness. Madame Belisaire was suddenly filled with a desire to learn,
and her husband must teach her to read. But while M. Rivals was pleased
at Jack's progress with his books, he was discontented with the state of
his health; the old cough had come back, his eyes were feverish and his
hands hot.

"I do not like this," said the good man; "you work too hard; you must
stop; you have plenty of time: Cecile does not mean to run away."

Never had the girl been more loving and tender; she seemed to feel
that she mast take his mother's place as well as her own; and it was
precisely this sweetness that induced Jack to make greater exertions
each day. His bodily frame was in the same condition as that of the
Fakirs of India--urged to such a point of feverish excitement that pain
becomes a pleasure. He was grateful to the cold of his little attic,
and to the hard dry cough that kept him from sleeping. Sometimes at his
writing-table he suddenly felt lightness throughout all his being--a
strange clearness of perception and an extraordinary excitement of all
his intellectual faculties; but this was accompanied with great physical
exhaustion.

His work went like lightning, and all the difficulties of his task
disappeared. He would have gone on thus to the end of his labor, had he
not received a