During all this time, his wife sat at their friend’s side, and knew not what to think of this prolonged absence, nor how to calm the agitation into which the sick youth was thrown by the expectation of seeing his mother. His excitement was unfortunately increased by the crowd that always appeared on Sundays at the hospital. Each moment some one of the doors was thrown open, and each time Jack expected to see his mother. The visitors were clean and neatly dressed who gathered about the patients they had come to see, telling them family news and encouraging them. Sometimes the voices were choked with tears, though the eyes were dry, Jack heard a constant murmur of voices, and the perfume of oranges filled the room. But what a disappointment it was, after being lifted by the aid of a little stick hung by cords, when he saw that his mother had not come! He fell back more exhausted, more despairing than ever. With him, as with all others who are on the threshold of death, the slender thread of life that remained to him was too fragile to attach itself to the robust years of his manhood, and took him beyond them into the far away days when he was little Jack, the velvet-clad darling of Ida de Barancy. The crowd still came, women and little children, who stood in displeased surprise at their father’s emaciation and at his nightcap, and uttered exclamations of delight at the sight of the beautifully dressed altar. But Jack’s mother did not appear. Madame Bélisaire knows not what to say. She has hinted that M. D’Argenton may be ill, or that his mother is driving in the Bois, and now she spreads a colored handkerchief on her knees and pares an orange. “She will not come!” said Jack. These very words he had spoken in that little home at Charonne which he had prepared with so much tender care. But his voice was now weaker, and had even a little anger in its accents. “She will not come!” he repeated; and the poor boy closed his eyes, but not in sleep. He thought of Cécile. The sister heard his sighs, and said to Madame Bélisaire, whose large face was shining with tears,— “What is the matter with him? I am afraid he is suffering more.” “It is on account of his mother, whom he expects, and he is troubled that she does not come.” “But she must be sent for.” “My husband went long ago. But she is a fine lady; she won’t come to a hospital and run the risk of soiling her silk skirts.” Suddenly the woman rose in a fit of anger. “Don’t cry, dear,” said she to Jack, as she would have spoken to her little child; “I am going for your mother.” Jack understood what she said, understood that she had gone, but still continued to repeat, in a harsh voice, the words, “She will not come! she will not come!” The sister tried to soothe him. “Calm yourself, my child.”