"Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!" muttered the woman, without
stirring.

The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife's arm.

"I sha'n't trouble you long, Marie! Air--air!"

"Jean, you will make yourself worse--besides, I shall catch my death of
cold. I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door."

"Pardon me," groaned the sufferer; "leave me, then." Poor fellow!
perhaps at that moment the thought of unkindness was sharper than the
sharp cough which brought blood at every paroxysm. He did not like her
so near him, but he did not blame her. Again, I say,--poor fellow! The
woman opened the door, went to the other side of the room, and sat down
on an old box and began darning an old neck-handkerchief. The silence
was soon broken by the moans of the fast-dying man, and again he
muttered, as he tossed to and fro, with baked white lips:

"Je m'etoufee!--Air!"

There was no resisting that prayer, it seemed so like the last. The wife
laid down the needle, put the handkerchief round her throat, and opened
the window.

"Do you feel easier now?"

"Bless you, Marie--yes; that's good--good. It puts me in mind of old
days, that breath of air, before we came to Paris. I wish I could work
for you now, Marie."

"Jean! my poor Jean!" said the woman, and the words and the voice took
back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the
past time. And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp
with livid dews, upon her breast.

"I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so
soon; but I thought I was stronger. Don't cry; we have no little ones,
thank God. It will be much better for you when I am gone."

And so, word after word gasped out--he stopped suddenly, and seemed to
fall asleep.

The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow--the
head fell back heavily--the jaw had dropped--the teeth were set--the
eyes were open and like the stone--the truth broke on her!

"Jean--Jean! My God, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the last!"
With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself insensible.

Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window. Through that
aperture, after a moment's pause, a young man leaped lightly into the
room. He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the
forms stretched on the pallet. It was enough for him that they seemed
to sleep, and saw him not. He stole