Dauche’s wound was now healed over. Mine required very little attention. There was no difficulty about my recovery. I was waiting for something else. I understood that perfectly when one day Dauche asked me why I remained so long in the fighting zone. I hit upon a reply in which I pleaded our great friendship and that I had few attachments within the country. But when I faced the question myself I saw quite well what was the real motive of my stay at S----. Always I was waiting for that something to happen. In spite of these moods, the affection I had for Dauche continued to grow. It had deepened with my pity, and the certainty that death would shortly claim him contributed not a little to exalt it. I was by nature inclined to be emotional, and I became passionately devoted to him. I experienced all the apprehensions of a woman who tends a sick child, and is filled with despair on the slightest symptoms or movements. There was in the park a tennis court, on which a few worm-eaten wickets were lying. Dauche hit them often with some worn bowls which the moisture was fast rotting. One morning, as he was throwing one of these bowls, it crumbled into pieces between his fingers, causing him to turn and stumble. At once he raised his hand to his brow, and I thought he staggered. Already I was upon him, and I caught him in my arms. “What is the matter with you?” he said, seeing my discomposed features. “I thought your head was giving you pain.” “No,” he replied smiling; “not at all. I was readjusting my bandages.” Another time, when I dropped a book I was running through very abstractedly, he bent down, with his usual alacrity, to pick it up. I thought he was slow in rising again, as if he was trying to master an attack of giddiness. Leaning forward, I at once took the book from his hands. His eyes were veiled with a thin reddish film. Perhaps I imagined that, for it did not last a moment. “I forbid you,” I said, making a painful effort to be jocular--“I forbid you to play any other part than that of a convalescent.” He looked at me, amazed, and asked: “Do you want me to believe that I am ill?” This reply showed me how tactless I had been, and I saw that I must carefully take myself in hand if I were to hide the anxiety which obsessed me. Henceforth I was never free from it. I noticed everything my friend ate or drank, not daring to advise him, and itching sometimes to do so. I got clear away by myself and read in secret some medical treatise which tended rather to lead me astray than instruct me. I made a thousand resolutions and plans and rejected them in turn. They would all have been ridiculous, or even comic, if death had not been at hand, sacred and solemn. That night I awoke startled several times, and I listened to the breathing of my companion, convinced, with the slightest pause, the slightest change in the rhythm, that he was dying--that he was dead.