"Listen, my children," added Pâquerette, taking her ease: "I am a kind hearted woman, and it displeases me to see you made game of. You are very nice, both of you, gentle as lambs, good as bread. It has been my dream to see you married, and I well know that two better little creatures were never brought together. So, Monsieur, accept Madame. Every day, I meet Laurence and Jacques caressing each other on the stairway!" I glanced at Marie. She was calm; the beating of her pulse had not increased. She seemed to be dreaming with her eyes fixed on me, and, perhaps, she saw me in her dream. The kisses which Jacques might have given to Laurence did not disturb the tranquil friendship which she felt for him. As for me, I felt the insupportable warmth mount to my breast and stifle me. I knew not what was the sudden numbness which gave me a dull, deep pain, penetrating even to my soul. I thought neither of Laurence nor Jacques; I listened to Pâquerette and the suffocation augmented, stopping up my throat. Pâquerette slowly rubbed her withered hands; her gray eyes, sunken beneath her flabby eyelids, shone strangely in her yellow visage. She resumed, in a voice more cracked than ever: "You stare at each other like a couple of stupid innocents! Have you not understood, Claude? Jacques has taken Laurence from you; take Marie. Ah! the little one smiles: she asks nothing better. In the way I suggest, no one will be left disconsolate, no one will have any reproaches to make. That's the fashion in which everything should be arranged in this life!" Marie impatiently lifted her hand, making her a sign to stop. The old woman's sharp voice imparted a quiver to her emaciated flesh. Then, her countenance assumed an expression of melancholy peace, an air of calm ecstasy; she gazed at me thoughtfully, and said to me, in a penetrating tone, a tone which I had never known her voice to possess: "Will you, Claude? I will love you so much!" And she sat upright. A fit of coughing threw her back upon the bed, her body horribly shaken, all panting with pain. With arms open and twisted, with head thrown backward, she was suffocating. Her partially uncovered breast, that poor breast which suffering had made so infantile, so pure, rose and fell frightfully as if torn by a furious tempest. Then, the terrible cough passed away, and the girl stretched herself out, pale, her cheeks violet, as if overwhelmed with fatigue and insensibility.