The room was very clean and in perfect order. Lalie that very morning had swept and arranged everything. In vain did the cold blast of poverty blow through that chamber and bring with it dirt and disorder. Lalie was always there; she cleaned and scrubbed and gave to everything a look of gentility. There was little money but much cleanliness within those four walls. The two children were cutting out pictures in a corner, but Lalie was in bed, lying very straight and pale, with the sheet pulled over her chin. "What is the matter?" asked Gervaise anxiously. Lalie slowly lifted her white lids and tried to speak. "Nothing," she said faintly; "nothing, I assure you!" Then as her eyes closed she added: "I am only a little lazy and am taking my ease." But her face bore the traces of such frightful agony that Gervaise fell on her knees by the side of the bed. She knew that the child had had a cough for a month, and she saw the blood trickling from the corners of her mouth. "It is not my fault," Lalie murmured. "I thought I was strong enough, and I washed the floor. I could not finish the windows though. Everything but those are clean. But I was so tired that I was obliged to lie down----" She interrupted herself to say: "Please see that my children are not cutting themselves with the scissors." She started at the sound of a heavy step on the stairs. Her father noisily pushed open the door. As usual he had drunk too much, and in his eyes blazed the lurid flames kindled by alcohol. When he saw Lalie lying down he walked to the corner and took up the long whip, from which he slowly unwound the lash. "This is a good joke!" he said. "The idea of your daring to go to bed at this hour. Come, up with you!" He snapped the whip over the bed, and the child murmured softly: "Do not strike me, Papa. I am sure you will be sorry if you do. Do not strike me!" "Up with you!" he cried. "Up with you!" Then she answered faintly: "I cannot, for I am dying." Gervaise had snatched the whip from Bijard, who stood with his under jaw dropped, glaring at his daughter. What could the little fool mean? Whoever heard of a child dying like that when she had not even been sick? Oh, she was lying! "You will see that I am telling you the truth," she replied. "I did not tell you as long as I could help it. Be kind to me now, Papa, and say good-by as if you loved me." Bijard passed his hand over his eyes. She did look very strangely--her face was that of a grown woman. The presence of death in that cramped room sobered him suddenly. He looked around with the air of a man who had been suddenly awakened from a dream. He saw the two little ones clean and happy and the room neat and orderly. He fell into a chair. "Dear little mother!" he murmured. "Dear little mother!"