treet.

"---- was there yesterday and the day before."

They reach the house. Attalie meets her counselor alone at the top of the
stairs. "_Li bien malade_," she whispers, weeping; "he is very ill."

"---- wants to make his will?" asks Camille. All their talk is in their
bad French.

Attalie nods, answers inaudibly, and weeps afresh. Presently she manages
to tell how the sick man had tried to write, and failed, and had fallen
back exclaiming, "Attalie--Attalie--I want to leave it all to you--what
little--" and did not finish, but presently gasped out, "Bring a notary."

"And the doctor?"

"---- has not come to-day. Michie told the doctor if he came again he
would kick him downstairs. Yes, and the doctor says whenever a patient of
his says that he stops coming."

They reach the door of the sick man's bedchamber. Attalie pushes it
softly, looks into the darkened chamber and draws back, whispering, "He
has dropped asleep."

Camille changes places with her and looks in. Then he moves a step across
the threshold, leans forward peeringly, and then turns about, lifts his
ill-kept forefinger, and murmurs while he fixes his little eyes on hers:

"If you make a noise, or in any way let any one know what has happened, it
will cost you all he is worth. I will leave you alone with him just ten
minutes." He makes as if to pass by her towards the stair, but she seizes
him by the wrist.

"What do you mean?" she asks, with alarm.

"Hush! you speak too loud. He is dead."

The woman leaps by him, slamming him against the banisters, and disappears
within the room. Camille hears her loud, long moan as she reaches the
bedside. He takes three or four audible steps away from the door and
towards the stairs, then turns, and darting with the swift silence of a
cat surprises her on her knees by the bed, disheveled, unheeding, all
moans and tears, and covering with passionate kisses the dead man's--hands
only!

To impute moral sublimity to a white man and a quadroon woman at one and
the same time and in one and the same affair was something beyond the
powers of Camille's small soul. But he gave Attalie, on the instant, full
credit, over credit it may be, and felt a momentary thrill of spiritual
contagion that he had scarcely known before in all his days. He uttered
not a sound; but for all that he said within himself, drawing his breath
in through his clenched teeth, and tightening his fists till they
trembled, "Oho-o!--Aha!--No wo