“If I should die,” he resumed, “listen to me well—close all the doors immediately. You are to keep the envelopes, you, you only. And when you have collected all my other manuscripts, send them to Ramond. These are my last wishes, do you hear?” But she refused to listen to him. “No, no!” she cried hastily, “you talk nonsense!” “Clotilde, swear to me that you will keep the envelopes, and that you will send all my other papers to Ramond.” At last, now very serious, and her eyes filled with tears, she gave him the promise he desired. He caught her in his arms, he, too, deeply moved, and lavished caresses upon her, as if his heart had all at once reopened to her. Presently he recovered his calmness, and spoke of his fears. Since he had been trying to work they seemed to have returned. He kept constant watch upon the press, pretending to have observed Martine prowling about it. Might they not work upon the fanaticism of this girl, and urge her to a bad action, persuading her that she was securing her master’s eternal welfare? He had suffered so much from suspicion! In the dread of approaching solitude his former tortures returned—the tortures of the scientist, who is menaced and persecuted by his own, at his own fireside, in his very flesh, in the work of his brain. One evening, when he was again discussing this subject with Clotilde, he said unthinkingly: “You know that when you are no longer here—” She turned very pale and, as he stopped with a start, she cried: “Oh, master, master, you have not given up that dreadful idea, then? I can see in your eyes that you are hiding something from me, that you have a thought which you no longer share with me. But if I go away and you should die, who will be here then to protect your work?” Thinking that she had become reconciled, to the idea of her departure, he had the strength to answer gaily: “Do you suppose that I would allow myself to die without seeing you once more. I will write to you, of course. You must come back to close my eyes.” Now she burst out sobbing, and sank into a chair. “My God! Can it be! You wish that to-morrow we should be together no longer, we who have never been separated!”