And it was so, there were no more smiles of derision on those young faces that were gathered round the village doctor. Perhaps even tears could have been detected in some of their eyes. He resumed his narrative. Madame Meredith was carried home, and lay for several hours senseless on her bed. I felt that it was at the same time a duty and a cruelty to lavish on her the assistance of my art to recall her to life. I dreaded the heart-rending scenes that would follow this state of immobility; and I bent over her, bathing her temples with cooling water, and anxiously awaiting the grievous, but happy moment when I should see the breath of life issue from her lips. I was deceived in my anticipations, for I had never before seen a terrible misfortune. Eva opened her eyes, and closed them again instantly; the lids were not even moistened by a tear. She lay cold and silent, without motion; and I should have thought her dead, had I not felt her heart begin to throb beneath my hand. How mournful it is to witness a grief we know to be beyond all consolation. I felt that to remain silent seemed a want of pity for this unhappy woman, but that to speak consolingly were not to appreciate the depth of her sorrow. I, who was unable even to soothe her uneasiness—how could I hope to be more eloquent in the face of such an affliction. I adopted the safest plan, that of a complete silence. I said to myself that I would remain and take care of the physical evil; so I stood by her side as a faithful dog would have couched at her feet. My resolution once taken, I was calmer. In the course of a few hours I put a spoonful of a beverage that I deemed necessary to her lips. Eva slowly turned her head to the other side. In a few minutes I again attempted it. “Drink, madame,” I said; and I gently raised the spoon to her lips, but they continued closed. “Madame, for your child,” I said, in a low voice. Eva opened her eyes, and raising herself with difficulty, rested on her elbow, leaned over toward the drink I presented, and took it; she then fell back on her pillow. “I must wait till another life is separated from mine,” she murmured. From that time Madame Meredith spoke no more, but she followed my prescriptions mechanically. Stretched on her bed of grief, she seemed to sleep eternally; but whenever, in my lowest tone, I said to her, “raise yourself and drink this,” she obeyed at the first word, which proved to me that the soul was ever awake in that body, and found no moment of forgetfulness or repose.