The Abbe Duplanty, a kindly, upright priest, guileless and unsuspicious, was struck with the truth of Dr. Poulain’s remarks.  He had, moreover, a certain belief in the doctor of the quarter.  So on the threshold of the death-chamber he stopped and beckoned to Schmucke, but Schmucke could not bring himself to loosen the grasp of the hand that grew tighter and tighter.  Pons seemed to think that he was slipping over the edge of a precipice and must catch at something to save himself.  But, as many know, the dying are haunted by an hallucination that leads them to snatch at things about them, like men eager to save their most precious possessions from a fire.  Presently Pons released Schmucke to clutch at the bed-clothes, dragging them and huddling them about himself with a hasty, covetous movement significant and painful to see.

“What will you do, left alone with your dead friend?” asked M. l’Abbe Duplanty when Schmucke came to the door.  “You have not Mme. Cibot now—­”

“Ein monster dat haf killed Bons!”

“But you must have somebody with you,” began Dr. Poulain.  “Some one must sit up with the body to-night.”

“I shall sit up; I shall say die prayers to Gott,” the innocent German answered.

“But you must eat—­and who is to cook for you now?” asked the doctor.

“Grief haf taken afay mein abbetite,” Schmucke said, simply.

“And some one must give notice to the registrar,” said Poulain, “and lay out the body, and order the funeral; and the person who sits up with the body and the priest will want meals.  Can you do all this by yourself?  A man cannot die like a dog in the capital of the civilized world.”

Schmucke opened wide eyes of dismay.  A brief fit of madness seized him.

“But Bons shall not tie! . . .” he cried aloud.  “I shall safe him!”

“You cannot go without sleep much longer, and who will take your place?  Some one must look after M. Pons, and give him drink, and nurse him—­”

“Ah! dat is drue.”

“Very well,” said the Abbe, “I am thinking of sending your Mme. Cantinet, a good and honest creature—­”

The practical details of the care of the dead bewildered Schmucke, till he was fain to die with his friend.

“He is a child,” said the doctor, turning to the Abbe Duplanty.

“Ein child,” Schmucke repeated mechanically.

“There, then,” said the curate; “I will speak to Mme. Cantinet, and send her to you.”

“Do not trouble yourself,” said the doctor; “I am going home, and she lives in the next house.”

The dying seem to struggle with Death as with an invisible assassin; in the agony at the last, as the final thrust is made, the act of dying seems to be a conflict, a hand-to-hand fight for life.  Pons had reached the supreme moment.  At the sound of his groans and cries, the three standing in the doorway hurried to the bedside.  Then came the last blow, smiting asunder the bonds between soul and body, striking down to life’s sources; and suddenly Pons regained for a few brief moments the perfect calm that follows the struggle.  He came to himself, and with the serenity of death in his face he looked round almost smilingly at them.