“Madame,” said Jeanne one evening, “why doesn’t Lucien come to play with me?”

Juliette was embarrassed for a moment, and merely answered with a smile.

“Is he ill too?” continued the child.

“No, my darling, he isn’t ill; he has gone to school.”

Then, as Helene accompanied her into the ante-room, she wished to apologize for her prevarication.

“Oh!  I would gladly bring him; I know that there’s no infection.  But children get frightened with the least thing, and Lucien is such a stupid.  He would just burst out sobbing when he saw your poor angel—­”

“Yes, indeed; you are quite right,” interrupted Helene, her heart ready to break with the thought of this woman’s gaiety, and her happiness in possessing a child who enjoyed robust health.

A second week had passed away.  The disease was following its usual course, robbing Jeanne every hour of some of her vitality.  Fearfully rapid though it was, however, it evinced no haste, but, in accomplishing the destruction of that delicate, lovable flesh, passed in turn through each foreseen phase, without skipping a single one of them.  Thus the spitting of blood had ceased, and at intervals the cough disappeared.  But such was the oppressive feeling which stifled the child that you could detect the ravages of the disease by the difficulty she experienced in breathing.  Such weakness could not withstand so violent an attack; and the eyes of the Abbe and Monsieur Rambaud constantly moistened with tears as they heard her.  Day and night under the shelter of the curtains the sound of oppressed breathing arose; the poor darling, whom the slightest shock seemed likely to kill, was yet unable to die, but lived on and on through the agony which bathed her in sweat.  Her mother, whose strength was exhausted, and who could no longer bear to hear that rattle, went into the adjoining room and leaned her head against the wall.

Jeanne was slowly becoming oblivious to her surroundings.  She no longer saw people, and her face bore an unconscious and forlorn expression, as though she had already lived all alone in some unknown sphere.  When they who hovered round her wished to attract her attention, they named themselves that she might recognize them; but she would gaze at them fixedly, without a smile, then turn herself round towards the wall with a weary look.  A gloominess was settling over her; she was passing away amidst the same vexation and sulkiness as she had displayed in past days of jealous outbursts.  Still, at times the whims characteristic of sickness would awaken her to some consciousness.  One morning she asked her mother: 

“To-day is Sunday, isn’t it?”

“No, my child,” answered Helene; “this is only Friday.  Why do you wish to know?”

Jeanne seemed to have already forgotten the question she had asked.  But two days later, while Rosalie was in the room, she said to her in a whisper:  “This is Sunday.  Zephyrin is here; ask him to come and see me.”