alled Malivoire and tried to speak to him.
But Malivoire could not catch the words he muttered.

Then the death-rattle began, and lasted till morn....

A candle lighted up the room.

It burnt slowly, it lighted up the four white walls on which the coarse
ochre paint of the door and of the two cupboards cut a sharp
contrast....

On the iron bedstead with its dimity curtains, a sheet lay thrown over a
motionless body, molding the form as wet linen might do, indicating with
the inflexibility of an immutable line the rigidity, from the tip of the
toes to the sharp outline of the face, of what it covered.

Near a white wooden table Malivoire, seated in a large wicker arm-chair,
watched and dozed, half slumbering and yet not quite asleep.

In the silence of the room nothing could be heard but the ticking of the
dead man's watch.

From behind the door something seemed gently to move and advance, the
key turned in the lock, and Sister Philomene stood beside the bed.
Without looking at Malivoire, without seeing him, she knelt down and
prayed in the attitude of a kneeling marble statue; and the folds of her
gown were as motionless as the sheet that covered the dead man.

At the end of a quarter of an hour she rose, walked away without once
looking round, and disappeared.

The next day, awaking at the hollow sound of the coffin knocking against
the narrow stairs, Malivoire vaguely recalled the night's apparition,
and wondered if he had dreamed it; and going mechanically up to the
table by the bedside, he sought for the lock of hair he had cut off for
Barnier's mother: the lock of hair had vanished.

THE AWAKENING

From 'Renee Mauperin'

A little stage had been erected at the end of the Mauperins'
drawing-room. The footlights were hidden behind a screen of foliage and
flowering shrubs. Renee, with the help of her drawing-master, had
painted the curtain, which represented a view on the banks of the Seine.
On either side of the stage hung a bill, on which were these words,
written by hand:--

LA BRICHE THEATRE
THIS EVENING,

'THE CAPRICE,'

To conclude with
'HARLEQUIN, A BIGAMIST.'

And then followed the names of the actors.

On all the chairs in the house, which had been seized and arranged in
rows before the stage, women in low gowns were squeezed together, mixing
their skirts, their lace, the sparkle of their diamonds, and the
whiteness of their shoulders. The folding doors of the