Maurice rose. “Last night?” said he. “In that case, then, she is still here. Where?--upstairs?” And without waiting for a reply, he darted toward the staircase so quickly that neither Jean nor the abbe had time to intercept him. With three bounds he reached the room above; he walked straight to the bed, and with a firm hand turned back the sheet that hid his loved one’s face. But at the same moment he recoiled with a heart-broken cry. What! was this the beautiful, the radiant Marie-Anne--she whom he had loved so fervently! He did not recognize her. He could not recognize these distorted features--that swollen, discoloured face--these eyes, now almost hidden by the purple swelling round them. When Jean and the priest entered the room they found him standing with his head thrown back, his eyes dilated with terror, his right arm rigidly extended toward the corpse. “Maurice,” said the priest, gently, “be calm. Courage!” The young fellow turned with an expression of complete bewilderment upon his features. “Yes,” he faltered; “that is what I need--courage!” He staggered as he spoke, and they were obliged to support him to an arm-chair. “Be a man,” continued the priest. “Where is your energy? To live is to suffer.” He listened, but did not seem to understand. “Live!” he murmured; “why should I live since she is dead?” His eyes gleamed so strangely that the abbe was alarmed. “If he does not weep, he will most certainly lose his reason!” thought the priest. Then in a commanding voice he added aloud, “You have no right to despair; you owe a sacred duty to your child.” The same remembrance which had given Marie-Anne strength to hold even death itself at bay for a moment, saved Maurice from the dangerous trance into which he was sinking. He shuddered as if he had received an electric shock, and springing from his chair, “That is true,” he cried. “Take me to my child!” “Not just now, Maurice; wait a little.” “Where is it? Tell me where it is.” “I cannot; I do not know.” An expression of unspeakable anguish stole over Maurice’s face, and in a broken voice he said: “What! you don’t know? Did she not confide in you?” “No. I suspected her secret. I, alone----” “You, alone! Then the child is perhaps dead. Even if it is living, who can tell where it is?” “We shall no doubt find a clue.”