though he could not breathe.  ‘How hot it is in here!’ he said and flung himself down in an armchair.  ’A letter has come for you, my good friend,’ I said; ‘here it is;’ and I gave him the letter.  He took it up and glanced at the handwriting.  ’Ah! mon Dieu!’ he exclaimed, ‘perhaps she is free at last!’ Then his head sank back, and his hands shook.  After a little while he set the lamp on the table and opened the letter.  There was something so alarming in the cry he had given that I watched him while he read, and saw that his face was flushed, and there were tears in his eyes.  Then quite suddenly he fell, head forwards.  I tried to raise him, and saw how purple his face was.

“‘It is all over with me,’ he said, stammering; it was terrible to see how he struggled to rise.  ‘I must be bled; bleed me!’ he cried, clutching my hand. . . .  ‘Adrien,’ he said again, ’burn this letter!’ He gave it to me, and I threw it on the fire.  I called for Jacquotte and Nicolle.  Jacquotte did not hear me, but Nicolle did, and came hurrying upstairs; he helped me to lay M. Benassis on my little bed.  Our dear friend could not hear us any longer when we spoke to him, and although his eyes were open, he did not see anything.  Nicolle galloped off at once to fetch the surgeon, M. Bordier, and in this way spread the alarm through the town.  It was all astir in a moment.  M. Janvier, M. Dufau, and all the rest of your acquaintance were the first to come to us.  But all hope was at an end, M. Benassis was dying fast.  He gave no sign of consciousness, not even when M. Bordier cauterized the soles of his feet.  It was an attack of gout, combined with an apoplectic stroke.

“I am giving you all these details, dear father, because I know how much you cared for him.  As for me, I am very sad and full of grief, for I can say to you that I cared more for him than for any one else except you.  I learned more from M. Benassis’ talk in the evenings than ever I could have learned at school.

“You cannot imagine the scene next morning when the news of his death was known in the place.  The garden and the yard here were filled with people.  How they sobbed and wailed!  Nobody did any work that day.  Every one recalled the last time that they had seen M. Benassis, and what he had said, or they talked of all that he had done for them; and those who were least overcome with grief spoke for the others.  Every one wanted to see him once more, and the crowd grew larger every moment.  The sad news traveled so fast that men and women and children came from ten leagues round; all the people in the district, and even beyond it, had that one thought in their minds.

“It was arranged that four of the oldest men of the commune should carry the coffin.  It was a very difficult task for them, for the crowd was so dense between the church and M. Benassis’ house.  There must have been nearly five thousand