Let me go on. I remained at Saint-Malo without revealing my condition. Then I came back to Paris, and here some months afterward the little one was born--the child! When I fully understood what had happened to me, I experienced at first such fear; yes, such fear! Then I remembered that he was bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh; that you had given him life, and that he was a pledge from you. But one is so stupid when one knows nothing. One's ideas change just as one's moods change, and I became contented all at once; contented with the thought that I would bring him up, that he would grow to be a man, that he would call me mother. [_Weeps._] Now, he will never call me mother. He will never put his little arms around my neck, because I am going to leave him; because I am going away--I don't know where; but there, where everybody goes. Oh, God! My God! JEAN Calm yourself, my little Musotte. Would you be able to speak as you do speak if you were as ill as you think you are? MUSOTTE You do not see that the fever is burning within me; that I am losing my head, and don't know longer what I say. JEAN No, no; please calm yourself. MUSOTTE Pet me; pet me, Jean, and you will calm me. JEAN [_kisses her hair; then resumes_] There, there; don't speak any more for a minute or two. Let us remain quietly here near each other. MUSOTTE But I must speak to you; I have so many things to say to you yet, and do not know how to say them. My head is beyond my control. Oh, my God! how shall I do it? [_Raises herself, looks around her and sees the cradle._] Ah, yes, I know; I recollect, it is he, my child. Tell me, Jean, what will you do with him? You know that I am an orphan, and when I am gone he will be here all alone--alone in the world! Poor little thing! Listen, Jean, my head is quite clear now. I shall understand very well what you answer me now, and the peace of my closing moments depends upon it. I have no one to leave the little one to but you. JEAN I promise you that I will take him, look after him, and bring him up. MUSOTTE As a father? JEAN As a father. MUSOTTE You have already seen him? JEAN Yes. MUSOTTE Go and look at him again. [Jean _goes over to the cradle._] JEAN He is pretty, isn't he? MUSOTTE Everybody says so. Look at him, the poor little darling, who has enjoyed only a few days of life as yet. He belongs to us. You are his father; I am his mother, but soon he will have a mother no more. [_In anguish._] Promise me that he shall always have a father. JEAN [_goes over to her_] I promise it, my darling! MUSOTTE A true father, who will always love him well? JEAN I promise it. MUSOTTE You will be good--very good--to him? JEAN I swear it to you! MUSOTTE And then, there is something else--but I dare not-- JEAN Tell it to me. MUSOTTE