dness was breaking upon his reverie, he became conscious of nothing
beyond the sufferings of his poor heart.

The train was still rolling along with its great noise of flapping wings.
Beside Pierre and Marie, only Sister Hyacinthe was still awake amidst the
weary slumber of the carriage; and just then, Marie leant towards Pierre,
and softly said to him: "It's strange, my friend; I am so sleepy, and yet
I can't sleep." Then, with alight laugh, she added: "I've got Paris in my
head!"

"How is that--Paris?"

"Yes, yes. I'm thinking that it's waiting for me, that I am about to
return to it--that Paris which I know nothing of, and where I shall have
to live!"

These words brought fresh anguish to Pierre's heart. He had well foreseen
it; she could no longer belong to him, she would belong to others. If
Lourdes had restored her to him, Paris was about to take her from him
again. And he pictured this ignorant little being fatally acquiring all
the education of woman. That little spotless soul which had remained so
candid in the frame of a big girl of three-and-twenty, that soul which
illness had kept apart from others, far from life, far even from novels,
would soon ripen, now that it could fly freely once more. He beheld her,
a gay, healthy young girl, running everywhere, looking and learning, and,
some day, meeting the husband who would finish her education.

"And so," said he, "you propose to amuse yourself in Paris?"

"Oh! what are you saying, my friend? Are we rich enough to amuse
ourselves?" she replied. "No, I was thinking of my poor sister Blanche,
and wondering what I should be able to do in Paris to help her a little.
She is so good, she works so hard; I don't wish that she should have to
continue earning all the money."

And, after a fresh pause, as he, deeply moved, remained silent, she
added: "Formerly, before I suffered so dreadfully, I painted miniatures
rather nicely. You remember, don't you, that I painted a portrait of papa
which was very like him, and which everybody praised. You will help me,
won't you? You will find me customers?"

Then she began talking of the new life which she was about to live. She
wanted to arrange her room and hang it with cretonne, something pretty,
with a pattern of little blue flowers. She would buy it out of the first
money she could save. Blanche had spoken to her of the big shops where
things could be bought so cheaply. To go out with Blanche and run about a
little woul