hing! You
will feel better at once."

"Oh, you do not know! you cannot know!" he groaned, reseating himself
and taking his head between his hands. "It is too horrible! horrible!"

"Why, monsieur! What is it? Are you, then, hurt within? Say! Do you
suffer? How foolish I have been! I should have brought a doctor!"

She was kneeling in front of him in her genuine alarm. "Where is it,
Monsieur Jean? Where is the pain? Tell me! Tell me, then, monsieur!"

"No! no! it is not that, my child! It is here! here! here!" He struck
his breast at every word, and bowed his head with abject grief.

She was silent, thinking only of his hapless love. There was no word
for that!

"Ah! if it were only that! If it had been me instead of him!"

"Monsieur! My poor Monsieur Jean! You must not give way thus!"

"I am not fit to sit at the table with you, mademoiselle! My hands are
red with blood! Do not touch them! Understand? Red!"

"But you are crazy, monsieur!"

"No! I am--I am simply a _murderer_! Do you hear? A MURDERER!"

He whispered it with awful solemnity. Mlle. Fouchette, now thoroughly
frightened, recoiled from him. He was mad!

"That's right!" he cried. "That's right, mademoiselle! I'm not fit to
touch you! No wonder you shrink from me! For I have blood on my
hands,--his blood,--understand?--my friend's! Lerouge dead! dead! And
by me!"

"What's that?" she demanded. "Lerouge dead? Nonsense! It is not so!
Who told you that? I say it is not true!"

He seized her almost fiercely,--

"Not dead? Her brother not dead? Say it again! Give me some hope!" he
pleaded, pitifully.

"I tell you again it is not so! I saw one who knows but a few minutes
before I met you!"

He sank on his knees at her feet and kissed her hands, now trembling
with excitement.

"Again!" he exclaimed.

"It is as true as God!" said she. "And he is doing well!"

He took her in his arms passionately, pouring out the thankfulness of
his soul in kisses and loving caresses, sobbing like a child. They
mingled their tears,--the blessed tears of joy and sympathy!

For a long time they rested thus, immobile, with thoughts too deep for
expression,--in a sacred silence broken only by sighs. Then when the
calm was complete she softly disengaged herself in saying, "And _she_
is there, Jean," as if completing the sentence long before begun. But
it required an effort.

He answered by a pressure of the hand. That was all.

"And now, then, monsieur," she obser